Sui Generis
by Kerttu
Summary: Mulder has believed in extreme possibilities during whole of his life. Now he has to live with two of them.
1. Prelude

Title: Sui Generis  
(Latin: weird, odd, and bizarre)

Author: Kerttu

Date: Finished February 2001, modified January 2002, remodified June 2004

Feedback: Welcome, but go slow and tread carefully, this is my first attempt of a longer X-Files story.

Distribution: Any place that enjoys this story.

Rating: R, for ideas mostly

Content warning: gender confusion, angst, implied torture

Category: Mulder/Scully, Krycek/Mulder, babyfic (yeah, go figure)

Spoilers: All of the seasons and the movie, I didn't keep track of where I exactly took the comments from. And this is AU branching off after 'Requiem' although I've tried to be true to general canon.

Summary: Mulder has believed in extreme possibilities all his life. Now he has to live with them. Two of them.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, CC has them in iron grip, although I would sell him my obnoxious neighbour only to get a glimpse of the insides of those sound stages....

Thanks: To my friends Ebe and Ingrid who supported me through this opus. To my totally supreme beta Tarlan, who managed to turn this thing into a legible story. Thank you all. All the mistakes that remain are mine alone.

Sui Generis

by Kerttu

Prelude

1st of May, Thursday, 2003

Mulder awoke with a slight headache. Running a hand over his face, he felt the bandage on his forehead.

'One should not get thrown out ...or drink SO much...' he concluded and opened his eyes. He was on his bed - and he was alone.

She was gone. It was to be expected but still, some little part of him had hoped that she would have the nerve to stay and wait until he came out of the post-coital coma. Suddenly he remembered the look in her eyes, when she had just watched him for a while. He had almost thought she would start crying. There had been vulnerability he had never imagined her to have. She seemed to be breaking when she reached out and traced his face with her fingertips - and then they had been at 'it' again.

'Jeez' Mulder, what have you done?' he didn't grin when he thought that, but then another thought crossed his head: what would he tell Scully? 'Oh My God...' He sat up and looked at the bed again.

Last night he really had done the unthinkable - he had slept with Alex Krycek.


	2. Developments

Developments

30th of April, Wednesday, 2003

Scully hadn't come to work for a week, didn't return his calls and he blamed himself for that. He had not been able to save their son and she was grieving having lost William to the woodwork of what was left of the Consortium. They had had him for six months, then one night, Maggie Scully called and said that William was gone. They and the forensic team didn't find a single trace how he was taken from the room next to where Maggie was reading a book.

He and Scully had searched for him feverishly, but in vain.

It was very hard on Scully and as usual, she shut him out.

She had come back to work but sometimes she took some time off and shut him out again.

It was driving him nuts.

Work wasn't helping this time, although the information the bastard Krycek had brought was intriguing. He just couldn't concentrate on anything but ... her, his Scully. She was hurting, he was hurting and there it was.

Mulder glanced at the clock on the wall - it was almost time to go and meet the bastard again. The sewer-rat had promised more information.

Krycek was late, about three hours. Mulder shot a glance around the bar but there was still no sign of him. He took another sip of his Scotch and decided that he had enough of waiting. Since he was feeling lousy, and he was in a bar... 'One goes with the flow of things' he rationalised.

One double Scotch followed another. His mood got more and more sombre but also more numb, thank God.

"Hi, handsome, want to party?" Mulder turned his head. A cheap-looking chick perched on the next seat and winked at him. He hadn't realised it was one of those bars.

"Nope."

"Oh, come on, she's not worth it."

"Oh, but yes, she is."

"What she's got that I don't?"

"She doesn't look cheap."

The chick slapped him. He hardly felt it, but he did feel when somebody came and spun his seat around. The man looking down at him was, well, he was huge to say the least.

"Mister, if you don't want company, that's fine, but don't go around offending everyone."

"They all say that subtlety is not my strongest asset." He couldn't help it; he had to say it.

"Then your place is not in this bar."

"Oh, it is, I'm waiting for someone."

"And who could that be?" This was the chick again, her voice shrill with anger.

"Me."

Mulder turned slowly. Krycek had finally appeared. Looking a bit out of breath, but unfortunately very alive.

"Oh, a pair of faggots..." It was the chick again.

"And we have only kissed once", commented Krycek in a really low voice, but all four of them heard it. The chick doubled over with giggles that made her sound somehow really dumb-witted.

Mulder fought the urge to strike at Krycek. However, the mountain of muscles and steroids stood between him and Mulder. The rat-shit was safe...

"So this is 'she' who doesn't look cheap..." The chick burst. Hearing this, Mulder looked at her for a moment before her words registered. He saw red: how could this stupid tart compare Scully with this-this ...?!!

Krycek saw Mulder's eyes to blaze with anger before he started to wreak havoc.

Well, at least he tried to - by attempting to slap the chick. The proverbial Mohammed's companion grabbed hold of him and Mulder found the floor coming to face him damn fast.

He woke up in his car - on the passenger seat. Krycek was driving.

"Where are we going?" he coughed and felt that his head was hurting under the heavy layer of alcohol. He also felt a strong urge to punch Krycek. Somehow he resisted it - only because Krycek was driving, so they both might end up dead.

"Your place. You are in no condition for anything else. And stop touching your forehead, you'll start bleeding again."

"So you got me out of the place? Why not to leave me behind like you used to?"

"Things have changed. I need you to use the information." Krycek stopped in the red lights. "I'm one of the good guys now."

"Yeah, sure. Saint Krycek. Pope will die laughing."

Krycek didn't say anything until they had reached Mulder's apartment. He hated to admit it, but he was so drunk that even Krycek's occasional help to keep him upright was very useful. Mulder let himself be navigated to the bedroom and seated on the bed.

"I brought you this." Krycek showed him a computer disc and put it on the nightstand, out of his drunken reach. "You look at this when you're coherent again." There was a sigh when Krycek saw Mulder reaching under the bed and bringing out a half-finished bottle of something that seemed to be whisky.

"You're drunk, Mulder."

"I know." He proceeded to open the bottle and taking a mouthful of the contents.

"I meant - drunk enough." And then the bottle was suddenly in Krycek's hand.

"Hey! Give it back!" He didn't care why Krycek was acting up so nice. He wanted to get so drunk that he wouldn't even remember his own name anymore...

"You know that you're going to have a killer hangover tomorrow, don't you?"

"You're not my mother. And I really don't care. Now, give it back!"

Krycek shrugged and put the bottle on his lap. "Go ahead, it's you're funeral." After a moment's watching how Mulder downed another gulp of Scotch, he commented:

"At least put something on that gash."

"I'm really lousy with bandages even when I'm sober, so - no way!"

"And you have Scully, who has a degree in bandaging." There was something in Krycek's voice that didn't sound quite right but... Mulder blinked and tried to remember what the bastard had said. 'Yeah, Scully and the degree.'

"Right." He croaked.

"You should call her."

"She won't answer and I'm tired of talking to her machine. That thing knows me far better than she does."

"Then I'll do it."

That finally caught Mulder's attention. His hand holding the bottle sank to his lap.

"What?"

"Bandage you. Otherwise you'll bleed all over your bed. And you're the type A lousy housekeeper." Krycek got up. Mulder nodded, feeling nicely indifferent.

"That's true" he complied.

"Ouch! That hurt!!"

"Sorry." Crouching in front of Mulder, Krycek was smoothing the Band-Aid on his ex-partner's forehead and doing the best he could to ignore Mulder's body heat. He hated what he had become and he definitely hated the bouts of horniness that assailed him sometimes. Today had been particularly bad in that respect. He pulled back, noticing that Mulder was looking at him thoughtfully.

"Mm. I have been wondering..." The drunken Agent said and stopped.

"About what?"

"That... about that kiss." Krycek swallowed hard in disbelief ('He can't be asking this now?'), when Mulder continued: "Why did you kiss me?"

He shrugged and started collecting the medical stuff on his lap. Then he smirked and confessed:

"Maybe I had the hots for you?"

"Had, like past tense? What about now?"

'Shit', he thought and opted for humorous relief: "Look at you - totally sloshed, face bleeding: a complete mess. Who could possibly want you? I'm not even mentioning your hair..."

"Don't get personal!"

"Who, moi? Sticks and stones, Mulder, who asked about kissing?"

"Not kissing, a kiss! One particular kiss."

"You're obsessed with it, aren't you? Why? Want another one?" he teased and regretted it the next moment because Mulder's eyes went dark and he asked innocently like the whore of Babylon:

"Are you offering?"

"I'm not that cheap." Suddenly he felt really offended. Before he could get to his feet, however, Mulder had grabbed his wrist. Hard. 'So, are we back to the old routine of violence?' he snarled in his mind, but Mulder surprised him by saying:

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to offend you."

"You should have acted that way in the bar. Though coming from you and addressed to me... that's new." He tried to get up, but Mulder didn't let go. Instead of releasing him, he pulled Krycek closer. 'What the heck are you doing, Mulder?' He was still pulling him closer, he could sense the warmth emanating from Mulder's body, and also smell the whisky too well for comfort - and then Mulder planted a kiss on him - in the exact same spot he had given his peck.

Mulder watched Krycek jerk back and almost fall on his butt, because he had also released his hand. He scrambled onto his feet, and basically run out of the room. 'Curioser and curioser', Mulder thought and resumed drinking. God, he wished that someone would make him feel better.... about everything.

Krycek had rushed out, because... that was a good question, why? The practical part of his mind reminded him of the things he was still clutching against his chest. Yep, he had to put them back. That was as good excuse as any. His emotional part on the other hand had a really hard time trying to calm his racing heart and subdue the ringing in his ears. He leaned against the wall and sucked in a lungful of air. 'So this is what it feels like to be kissed by Mulder. Mm, correction, to be pecked by him...' Krycek found himself smiling, although he also felt angry as hell - now Mulder was teasing him, playing with him... 'And you don't know how easy it would be to persuade me... Thank God, that you don't know.'

He realised that he should leave right now, grab his jacket and leave. He had delivered the information and even taken care of Mulder's sorry arse. Forehead, to be exact. 'But why did he do that? To annoy me? To test me? For what? DAMN!'

He was standing on the doorway of the bedroom demanding an explanation before he understood what he was doing.

"Why did you do that?" It came out as a growl.

"My sentiment exactly..." Mulder smiled drunkenly and raised his eyes on Krycek. Motioning now with the almost empty bottle the Agent added: "You see how odd and... mmm... unresolved it felt?"

Something snapped inside of Krycek. "You want the thing resolved? Okay, let's resolve it."

Mulder observed with a mild amusement how Krycek stormed in, pulled him to his feet and - kissed him. This time properly on the mouth.

'Oh boy... what have I done now?' he was about to back away, when Mulder grabbed hold of him. Perhaps because he needed to steady his intoxicated body or perhaps he wanted to feel a bit in control or was just used to holding a partner while he was kissing - whatever the reason, Mulder's arms went around him.

Krycek stiffened but Mulder only chuckled shortly. "Scared, Krycek?" Jeez' how his breath stank, Mulder could even smell it himself but he didn't care. It made it more fun to see the bastard ruffle up, and retort with another almost bruising kiss.

Mulder's response caught him off-guard and the horniness he had barely managed to keep under control burst out and he felt his knees going weak. 'Never thought Cher could be right... Lost... lost' whined a tiny voice in his mind - because Mulder knew what to do. It was the most frightening thing - what do you do, if your life's wish is offered to you on a plate? What do you do?

He didn't know. He couldn't pull away; helpless, he could only hope that Mulder would. Desire was in him like a living thing, an erupted lava flow.

Mulder's head was spinning from the booze and the slight concussion. He saw Krycek just standing there, he seemed somehow vulnerable and - what was that thing in his eyes? 'Desperation? Need? So maybe his comment about the kiss was true?' He pulled him suddenly closer and although he saw fear flicker over Krycek's face, he didn't fight him when he ventured to test yet another thing: Mulder had always liked to kiss necks. 'If you don't approve, then... The choice is yours.'

'This is a bad idea, this is A VERY bad idea, very-very bad-' He really hated Mulder right now - he had never felt so helpless. 'We're both going to regret this, I just know it... God...' All higher brain functions shut down, since Mulder was doing really wicked things to his neck.

Then Mulder's hands started to roam.

They were everywhere. On his shirt, in his shirt, pulling and tugging, sliding and touching, caressing and holding, and pushing - until they both fell flat onto the bed knocking each others breath out.

"So you did have the hots for me..." Mulder's voice carried a twinge of mockery, but somehow it still felt like a caress.

Krycek didn't answer. He couldn't and he didn't want to. Even if Mulder stopped right now, his body would remember everything: his weight, his warmth, his hands - for a change not hurting -, those lips... He would have a little piece of personal heaven.

And, boy, was he horny now. He felt Mulder's hand coming up, fingers closing around his throat, rather tight - Mulder's skin was hot, Krycek felt his pulse drum against his grip - and he almost wished Mulder would squeeze the life out of him.

"You really want this, don't you?" Mulder couldn't believe it. He also couldn't believe that Krycek – of all the people! - allows him to hold him by throat. 'As if waiting meekly for me to - What, kill him?' The thought send adrenaline rushing through his system as he realised the situation: he was in control. This night he could do everything he wanted. Nobody had given him the total control, not even Scully when they had been together. Somehow, risking everything and going against all odds, Krycek had surrendered to him. Completely. No questions asked.

It felt good.

It felt damn good

It was the first good feeling he had experienced that night.

Damn, it was the first good thing he had felt for days.

The power of it made him feel giddy.

And Krycek still hadn't moved. Hadn't answered. "Do you want this?"

"Can't you tell?" The answer was forced as if he couldn't master his voice anymore.

Mulder could tell, as a matter of fact. He recognised the desperation, the craving for relief for the freezing loneliness. He recognised it all.

His hands were removing Krycek's shirt before he realised it.

The second week of May arrived with Scully returning to work. She still kept her distance, but she returned his attempts to joke and she smiled. Faintly, but a smile nonetheless. Mulder couldn't kick himself enough about the horrendous event. 'How could I do that? Would, please, someone explain it to me?'

Of course he tried to hide his dilemma from her, but there was nothing she wouldn't finally sense. And then, God forbid, confront him.

15th of May, Thursday, 2003

On Thursday evening the doorbell rang. Scully stood there, carrying his favorite take-out and Mulder knew that he was in trouble.

The shit hit the fan after the second cup of coffee.

"Mulder," she said and paused making him focus on her. "You've been acting..."

"How?"

"Qualmish." She paused for an emphasis. "For a week. What's the matter?"

He closed his eyes. 'Here we go...' Although he couldn't make himself to look at her, he still could talk. 'Mulder, now or never.'

"Scully, I have a confession."

"Yes?" She wasn't sure, did she like the sound of that.

"Did you see the last movie Kubrick made? With Kidman and Cruise?"

"Mm, yes..." 'Still don't like this.' Scully watched him struggle for words.

"You remember the scene where they make out in front of the mirror?"

Scully rolled her eyes, but nodded - trust Mulder to remember such scenes. He continued:

"Do you remember the song accompanying the scene, Chris Isaak'c 'My Baby Did A Bad, Bad Thing'?"

"Your point being?" She didn't like it at all...

"I feel exactly like that... I've done a bad-bad thing."

"Stop stalling. What was it?"

"I slept with Krycek."

She sat there. She hated to be right. She didn't like this.

Mulder waited.

She sat with her face blank and then she rose and Mulder flinched. 'Right, Mulder. Smooth, Mulder. Now she walks out of here and that is the end of our relation- damn, this kills even our friendship. Nice, Mulder, real nice.'

But she didn't.

She walked to the closet, where Mulder kept his 'emergency whisky' stashed, opened it, took a glass, and filled it to the rim. With two swallows it was downed. Then she poured herself another, closed the bottle and the closet, and came back to the couch.

"How? And if you can explain it, why?"

"I honestly don't know why I did it... As for how.... I know that it is no excuse, but I was really drunk." he was fiddling with the pair of chopsticks that came with the takeout.

"And he did what?"

"She."

"What?" she thought she heard wrong.

"She. Krycek was a woman."

"No..."

"Yes." he stopped fiddling and looked up, having the patented guilt-ridden-Mulder expression.

In a way she felt relieved: Mulder wasn't too weird. All the time she had feared - when they had started to get really close - that there is something in him that is too dark, something that could stand between them. He had now obviously confessed something that for him was the worst he could do and although she really disliked the fact, it had been only a one-night stand. With another ... woman?!

"Krycek is a woman?"

"Yes, she is. I have first hand knowledge." He stopped abruptly and rushed to correct himself "Scully, I didn't mean it like-"

"Yeah, sure...." She sipped her strong drink. "So, what happened?"

He sighed, but then told her: about the meeting in the bar, about his head-wound, about their talk.

"And then one thing-"

"Lead to another. Right. Why did ... she do that? What did she say?" She wanted to know, call it a scientific curiosity.

"He... She said nothing. But I suppose she was damn lonely. And perhaps-"

"Perhaps...?"

"Perhaps she wanted me." Mulder stretched his back and neck. "Now, when I think of it, there has been some kind of tension ... on his-her part." Scully was giving her suspicious brow-look. "I never thought about him like that, Scully!"

"Kind of hard to believe it now."

"It's true!"

"Okay. I'll settle with your word. You know you have to go and get tested, don't you?"

Mulder's shoulders slumped. "God, I didn't think about that..."

"It seems that you didn't think much at all... But drunkenness usually does that." Scully leaned back on the couch. The whisky was making her tipsy. 'No way I'm going to crash in Mulder's place, definitely not after this news'. Then she realised that she was no condition to drive home. 'Perfect'. She glanced at her watch. She had to go, but she didn't want to risk to be pulled over. 'I can see Skinner's look...'

"Scully..."

"Mh?"

"I'll drive you home." 'Blessed be Mulder's perceptiveness'. She nodded and slipped her shoes back on - which she hadn't even remembered taking off. 'Mmm, perceptiveness... Mulder's perceptiveness... What if he's right? What if Krycek really-'

"Where's the keys?"

"Here." She reached inside her coat pocket and handed them over. Mulder took them and then took her hand as well. She stopped and looked at him.

"Do you believe that I love you? That I would never want to-"

"I do believe that you love me. The other matter... I'll just have to risk and trust you." He had, indeed, sounded sincere. 'As long as his VD tests came up clean!'

Mulder smiled and hugged her. "Thank you", he whispered into her hair. The touchstone of his life was solid again.

7th of July, Monday, 2003

'What is this?'

Krycek clutched the side of the toilet having dropped to his knees and fought with the spell of faintness. It was afternoon and until now three times before in this week he had found himself unsteady and nauseous. It came and went, came when he seemed to get really hungry and then the feeling stayed with him about two hours.

'Is this the first sign of cancer?'

He sat onto the floor. He didn't want to die. He really didn't. 'Okay, Krycek, think. What else this could be? A bug, an usual little bug, that messes with your digestive system ... they usually make you nauseous, but not unsteady... Food poisoning? It would not last for so long... or if it did, I would be dead by now. What else? What would make a strong survivalist guy - correction - girl, so sick with no apparent reason?' He laughed silently at his own words - he had to force himself to think about being a 'her'.

'Krycek, what makes women sick-' His laughter died away. 'No... this can't be!! No, no...' But he thought back at the single night that meant something to him and he remembered that they had had raw sex in the first and literal sense of the word.

They had used no protection.

'Oh my God...'

There weren't many people in the local store, but Krycek still had the feeling that everybody glanced at him when he dropped the home-pregnancy-test among his other groceries. The shop-owner was a nice old man but right now Krycek dreaded his usual way of commenting something. However, he had been a good client this far and he didn't want that to change.

The constant itching on his phantom arm didn't make his mood better either.

When he put his things on the counter, he hoped that the storeowner would let the box go by unnoticed. No such luck. The old man smiled happily and said:

"Hoping for someone?"

Krycek wished to vanish but he smiled, too and answered: "Well, yes, me and my girl-friend..." He let the sentence hang in the limbo thanking God that he could still pass as a man.

"Good-good, I hope you two have some good luck!"

He knew that the old man had meant no harm, but he really wanted to kill him. 'However, some good luck would be welcomed, indeed.'

The blue stripe appeared - and brought along no stars. 'No happy American end for me...'

He sat on the bed and stared at the tiny crappy item that had given him the answer he didn't want. He threw the test back to the table and snarled. He couldn't hope that the test lied, those things had been basically tuned to be foolproof. 'Safe and comfortable' like the text said on the box. 'Safe indeed.'

'How could I be so stupid!' Krycek hit the wall. He hadn't suspected anything, he hadn't even thought about this possibility. Yet, he was trapped now. Not as bad as the silo but pretty close. Very soon.

'There are private hospitals', he thought staring angrily at the wall. 'If you pay enough and give false ID, there won't even be questions... so don't panic. Just don't.' Alex noticed that his fingers were trembling. 'Calm down. Tomorrow you'll go and find a nice white hospital, where they can take care of your problem. And then you are free...' He got up, made himself a big strong drink. It made him feel better, not much, but better nevertheless. He could even lay down and rest some, but he couldn't sleep, though - he was too shocked. The stump itched again, too. Real bad. So he just lay there and waited for morning to arrive.

9th of July, Wednesday, 2003

He woke up in intensive care, the machines all around him. And he was TIRED, like in 'dead-tired'. The nurse, who had sat nearby, got up, smiled at him, and went to fetch the doctor, before Krycek could utter a word. By the time the doctor got there, he had managed to free himself from the oxygen line.

"You're awake..." The doctor wheeled the stool nearer, looked at him, ignoring the missing oxygen line. "How are you feeling?"

"Like shit. What happened?" His voice was odd. 'Right, an anesthesia.'

"You... went into a cardiac arrest."

"I... died?" It hurt to talk.

"Yes. Your blood pressure dropped, your heart-"

"The child." he rasped. 'Priorities...'

"I'm sorry, but we couldn't do the procedure. As soon as the endoscope got near to the fetus, your vitals dropped. We tried three times. The last time you flat-lined."

"So.. it's still there?"

"Yes."

He felt cold panic - he somehow knew that he could go to another place but he wouldn't get what he wanted. The child would kill him, before letting him kill it.

"How long do I have ... to stay here?" Krycek knew that he shouldn't stay there at all, but he had to put on some front.

"24 hours. To see that the electrical shock didn't do any harm." The doctor patted his arm and stood. "Now, get some rest."

He actually slept three hours, before switching off the machines and sneaking away. He was still tired like hell, his knees wobbled, but he managed to leave.

Two weeks and two cardiac arrests later he gave up.

In the solitude of his motel-room he fell flat to the bed and felt how he was shuddering all over. 'Trapped... Christ, what a shit...'

17th of August, Sunday, 2003

The doorbell rang again. Scully moaned and opened her eyes. Alarm clock showed the third hour of a new day. "This'd better be good..." Shrugging on the bathrobe, she patted to the door, picking up her gun on the way, though. Even if it's only Mulder, one should not be too careful.

"Who's there?" she inquired when a glance through the peephole didn't give her any clues.

"Krycek. I need your help."

Scully slumped against the wall and stared in space for a while. 'The nerve this bastard has...'

"Please, Scully..." 'That's unheard of- Krycek actually saying 'please'.'

"What's wrong?"

"I got shot."

"Go to hospital."

"And get reported to police. Thanks, but no thanks." A short pause. "Please."

"I'll unlock the door, and you can come in, but try something and-"

"I get the idea."

Scully drew a breath, cocked the gun and clicked the lock. "Come in."

The first thing Krycek noticed was the barrel of the gun. 'And what did you expect, Alex? Open arms?' He stumbled in, his head spinning because of the pain. 'Shit' he thought when his vision blurred. Somehow he managed not to faint.

"You are a mess."

"Tell me about it." he hissed.

"Bathroom. You won't pay my carpet cleaning bills anyway."

Everything in Scully's bathroom manifested: Here lives Scully the most precise and pristine of Special Agents of the Bureau. Krycek, who was seated on the toilet, felt out of place. But he felt out of place in most places. He had let Scully to disarm him and take his jacket off. His only arm throbbed and he saw blood slowly wetting his shirtsleeve. 'Shit-shit-shit.... Who asked me to go and snoop around once again? Look, what you have to do, to whom you have to turn to...' Scully came back, holding a hypo.

"What's that?" he gasped, feeling weakly alarmed

"A local anaesthetic."

"I'm supposed to believe you?"

"I let you in, didn't I?"

"Whatever..." He actually didn't care whether Scully gave him a painkiller or a dose of poison, or whether he would get arrested or not.

He felt his arm go numb, observed how Scully destroyed his shirt and cleaned the entrance area of the bullet. The wound wasn't that bad, but he couldn't do anything with his fucking prosthetic replacement. He wasn't wearing it, either. It didn't seem to fit anymore.

He closed his eyes when Scully put on her glasses and started to dig the bullet out. Finally came the metallic clank. "Got it."

"Why do you have all this stuff at home?" Krycek had half-hoped that she would, but to witness that she did, made him curious.

"Mulder equals trouble equals wounds equals-"

"You patching him up."

"Yep. So it is handy stuff to keep around." Scully found herself relaxing - Krycek was pale and in pain and wasn't trying to attack her. "Why did you come here?"

"I knew that you could help me... if you choose to. I also brought you- Look in my jacket's right upper pocket." Scully did. It was a computer disc. "I also had nowhere else to go."

"Why not Mulder? The disc would mean more to him."

"No..." Krycek dreaded the thought that he would have to face Mulder again. "No." He shook his head. "And not this disc. It has medical records from the beginning of 1960's. Might throw some light on things for you both."

Scully nodded and didn't push the Mulder-issue, although she wanted to. After a moment she finished. "You should change it, at least once, you know."

Krycek looked at the bandage. He nodded, but commented: "It's going to be tricky."

"I'm sure you'll find a way."

"Thanks." Krycek stood at the kitchen door. Scully could barely hear his - 'you have to remember, damn it, 'her'' - low voice. She answered with a shrug.

"You took a chance coming here, I took a chance helping you."

"Perhaps you shouldn't have-"

"Perhaps. But I wouldn't have liked to explain to Mulder, why I didn't help his one night stand."

For a moment Krycek went white as a sheet and Scully waited for him to faint. After all, he/she had lost a fair amount of blood.

"He ... told you?" he finally stuttered.

"Yes. That's called trust, Krycek. You might have heard about the concept."

"And you still helped me... Why?"

'Beats me', Scully thought but said diplomatically: "I'm a doctor. And I'm curious. Why did you do it?" 'Didn't come out very diplomatic, did it, Scully?' she scolded herself waiting at the same time anxiously for Krycek's answer.

Krycek stood there, shifting his weight from one leg to another and was visibly torn between the urge to run - 'more likely stumble' - away and to stay and end the discussion. Scully watched the clock on the wall. She still might get some sleep, if Krycek left now. 'Though, it's unlikely. And I have to learn, why he ... she ... did that... thing.'

"Want some tea, Krycek?"

"What?" He had obviously lost the track of Dana's thoughts.

"Tea, a cup of hot tea. I need one. Looking at you I might say the same."

Krycek stepped in the kitchen. "Are you serious?"

"Yes." She had already filled the electric jug. A click and it started to hum almost at once.

"Why?"

"My sleep is ruined anyway. I also want my questions answered." She sat behind the table. "Sit and tell me."

"What did he say?" Krycek dragged the stool out under the table and winced - the arm started to hurt again.

"I'll tell you later. Now I want your version."

'Did it sound like a threat or am I paranoid?' Krycek took a seat.

"I ... love him."

Scully kept her poker face. "So do I. But I don't jump the people I love." The heating device clicked and turned off. She stood to pour the water out.

"I didn't jump him! Did he say that I did? He's such a-"

"Stop. Calm down. The more reason to explain what you did, don't you think?" She put a cup in front of her late-night/early-morning visitor. She also heard him-'her!' sigh.

"After being kicked out of the bar - I assume he told you that too (Scully nodded and sat down again) I took him back to his apartment, patched him up, since he refused to call you. While I was looking for things to help him with, he had carried on drinking ..." Krycek sipped his tea, almost burning his tongue, but managed to swallow the hot mouthful. "He kept asking about that stupid kiss... Just kept asking and asking... teasing, you know. Telling me - that it's unresolved. So-" he took another sip, this time more carefully. Whatever the blend, it was good. "-I resolved it. By kissing him." He ended bluntly.

Scully traced with her finger the rim of her cup. "And he allowed you?"

"Yes. He was drunk as a skunk and smelled like one too." Scully was watching him and Krycek wished now that he had listened to his instincts and run before the third degree started.

"Then?"

"What do you think?"

"I can imagine, though I'd rather not."

"Then don't."

"Why did he do it?"

"What did he say to that? I bet you asked him."

"Honestly?"

"Yes. Seems to be the mode of the evening."

"He doesn't know. Any ideas from you?"

"No ideas. Perhaps I was there and he was lonely. I know I was."

They ended their teas in silence.

When Scully walked Krycek back to the door, one more guestion begged to be asked.

"Krycek..."

"Mhh?"

"Did it make you feel better?"

"You are one nosy person."

"And you've never been that?"

Krycek smirked and capitulated. And because they had been oddly honest tonight...

"It helped some.... but it also made it worse."

"Why worse?"

"You're supposed to be a bright woman, Scully. Figure it out!" Krycek had got visibly angry. "He has you now, he has always had you! From the day you two met, you have had each other. I'm never going to feel close to him again..." His anger run out. "It hurts. The empty fucking nights and the bleak mornings hurt."

He went to the door, opened it and walked out, not adding anything. Scully stood there wondering whether she had heard correctly: it seemed that Krycek had been on the verge of tears. 'Krycek and crying. Well, that's a sight to see.'

The next day in the office dragged on like an asthmatic ant. Scully sat behind her computer, going through the information Krycek's disc contained. There was loads of material, but she needed to start somewhere. A whim made her type Krycek's name on the search, and then she was really shocked on seeing a file come up.

"Oh my God."

She looked up - Mulder wasn't in the room, which was good. She had to digest the news she had just read. She also had to collect the results from the lab... The ones she had given in that same morning.

When she returned, she smelled coffee from the elevator doors and was sure that Mulder had returned. She was right.

"Mulder..."

"Yes?" he was pouring himself the second cup of fresh coffee, but he turned around to see what Scully had to say. It sounded important.

She was staring at something within a report in her hand. She had the intent 'I'm-kicking-your-ass-with-science' Scully look and she was gorgeous. She had been getting more and more gorgeous, since they had resumed their intimate relationship. 'Which would be about month ago. I must remember to give her something nice for our month's anniversary'.

"You know, what you said about Krycek being a woman?" 'And here cometh the iceberg that sinketh the Titanic' Mulder sighed.

"Yes..." 'I'm painfully aware' he added, putting the glassy coffee-pot back.

"Well, she's a woman alright. The tests prove it."

"What tests?" Mulder inquired, surprised.

"The ones I took from him, her... and gave in for testing this morning. I had a night visitor." Scully sat down behind her desk. "And she's pregnant, too." She looked up only to see Mulder losing his grip around the coffee mug. It shattered to the floor.

"Preg... pregnant?" he stuttered.

"Yes. Her blood has the required level of HCG."

"Of what?"

"It stands for human chrionic gonadotropin, the pregnancy hormone. Mulder, you better sit down." He did, his knees were jelly anyway.

"How..." he only managed.

"Krycek came to my place yesterday night. He - sorry, she, needed help, because she had been shot. It was a clean bullet wound on ... her upper arm, but being one-handed... " Mulder nodded absentmindedly.

"So," Scully continued, "I cleaned it, dressed it and drank a very late tea with her."

"You did what?!"

"It was very enlightening... Anyway, I brought some of her blood to the lab, and here are the results. Krycek is definitely a woman. And you may relax - she tested totally clean about anything venereal."

Mulder seemed shell-shocked. Scully felt sorry, but she wasn't finished.

"There's more, Mulder."

"What?"

"Krycek also dropped off a disc with medical information about human testing. Her own name came up. She or he, whatever, was one of the first test-tube babies in the world. If that's true, the method was in active use far before than the public knew about it."

"That's yesterday's news."

"I'm just angry that all of my education about medical history is somewhat... wrong." Scully got up and fetched herself coffee. 'I have to get Mulder another mug... Something with foxes this time.' She sat back. "There were weird things in Krycek's file. The DNA was odd, human, but... I have to consult the specialist I know. His, her hormone levels are strange, too. That together with this extra-ordinary DNA structure might be the reason for her sex change. If it did happen at all. You never saw her naked before-"

"I certainly didn't!! But I have wrestled with him really up-close and... You know." Mulder looked sheepish.

Scully smiled and concluded: "I don't but I believe you. If she did change sex during her life... that must have been rather traumatic."

"You wish to play doctor?" It seemed that Mulder started to recover.

"I am one, I don't have to play. I just thought... imagine if you woke up on day to find you were now a woman. What would you do?"

"Head out to buy some lingerie... Though I'm sure I wouldn't find fitting shoes..."

The autumn in the year 2003 began. In some ways it was the best autumn Mulder had had since the childhood. Scully was with him, the upper levels didn't pester them too much and they were happy together. They shared really everything now. The hardships they had been through together gave only the feeling of security that they never had thought possible.

The one thing that had bothered them, Krycek, had vanished somewhere.

They snatched time each day when there was decent weather and went for long walks in the parks of Washington. Mulder could have sworn that the sun had never shone so warm in September before, the leaves in the trees been so brightly coloured, and Scully so prone to giggle and eat ice cream.


	3. Selfreflections

Self-reflections

4th of September, Thursday, 2003

I'm writing a journal, funny, isn't it? An ex-assassin sitting down to write a diary...

But life has it odd ways and I suppose this is one of them. And a definitely extreme way...

I really don't know whether anyone will read this, but to be alone and wait for the 'process' to finish and go insane is just not my idea of how to spend my time.

Or perhaps I'm exorcising my demons and aren't there many of them... One of them made me what I am and I don't even know who that bastard was. Once I could have found out, once when I was still inside the dark system but now...

Maybe I should ask for help- nah, nope, not my style at all.

And reading this thing through I realised I'm rambling like a lunatic. There is no sense whatsoever in these lines. Or perhaps somewhere there is. So, to make things clearer:

I used to be a clean-cut fresh eager son-of-a-bitch, who jumped at the mission given to him. How I was to know that the supposedly psychologically unstable Special Agent was just too determined? And when I quickly re-considered, the wheels were already turning, I had to follow the orders or... well, I've met a bomb or two.

Not too intimately, thanks to God.

No thanks to God for making me acquainted with extra-terrestrial life forms, more than one...

Well, back to the history. I did kill couple of people, one of them unfortunately being... You better ask your father about that.

Jeez', I just understood for whom I'm writing this crap. Mulder, the father of yours, would have a field day and cramps of laughter. But, on the other hand, he's responsible for the situation I'm in - sitting here and scribbling because I have to do something to kill the time.

But back to the story of my life.

So I fled when the opportunity showed itself, and basically I've never stopped running. There have been worse periods and better ones but I'm still running. Trying to help the ones whom I betrayed - or should I say 'had to betray'? Does it make a difference? - it's the only good I have managed to achieve recently. The other big change came upon me unexpected and it didn't cheer me up.

What would you think, if you'd fell asleep as a man and woke up as a woman? Virginia Woolf imagined the situation, but her world didn't include the struggle for the world supremacy. Though the book isn't bad... Nevermind, I'm off rambling again.

But it's the truth, I fell asleep as a man, snored for about a week and woke up hungry, thirsty and - a woman. Mulder would love to ask me lots of questions but... If we met again, especially now, I would have better died in the silo or in the woods of Russia. He doesn't need to have another round of ammunition for killing my soul. He has alreay ripped through it.

Yes, perhaps, if you are even half as smart of what he is or at least as smart that I am, you will have figured out that I'm talking about your father. He was my partner in my snippet-term career in FBI, a most violent enemy (you should have seen the bruises, you really should have!) and unfortunately for me the one-night-stand too many.

It seems that I don't love you too much, doesn't it? Well, I've grown accustomed to the situation, but to tell you the truth, I'm not at all thrilled by the idea. I don't have the faintest clue, how to deal with you or what to do when D-day arrives. I'll cope, though, I have always seemed able to find a way. I can only hope that you share the same quality.

I'm trying to flee to some place, where I'm safe for a while. I think I'll go North. It feels a good choice. The fewer the people see me like this, the better.

10th of September, Wednesday, 2003

It has been a week, since I wrote the first bit. I noticed that the rambling was not getting any clearer.

Maybe this will make the difference?

I'll tell you the story of a love affair.

There was this rather young cocky boy who looked - now I would have to say 'awful', since that happens to be true. The appearance I had was a killer - in a bad way.

Anyway, I looked rather innocent. He didn't. His eyes told a history of things one should not encounter at all, if one wants to have a happy life and insanity intact. Unfortunately, that was not to be his fate.

And as it turned out to be, I got sucked into the same world: full of death, blood, aliens... I'm side-tracking again. Should I blame hormones or something?

However, there was one thing about meeting him. The best and the worst at the same time. I fell in love with him. The kind of love that makes you weak and doesn't let go whatever you do. By 'weak' I mean unable to resist that particular person. Flip back and read the comment about bruises.

I could hide it, though. Mostly.

Not the bruises, the feeling.

There were the two times, the one that alerted his curiosity about me, the peck I gave on his cheek; and the one damned night that... when you came along. There were years between the two events and even more years between the first meeting with him. But I'm cursed to love him, I have done just about everything short of suicide to ignore it, but the fucking feeling just sneaks up on me and jumps at me when it's least expected.

Like last night. I suddenly found myself on this bed, staring at the ceiling and missing him so much that it hurt me physically. I ended up sitting against the headboard, hugging a pillow and half-crying. Womanly, isn't it? You know, I haven't been able to wrap my mind around the concept that I'm actually one. I know I am, I see it every day, but.... 33 years with a male body does have its effect, you know.

Anyhow, these are the worst moments, the moments I'd like to pick up the phone, dial his number, stored somewhere in the memory, and just listen to his voice. And beg him to come and hold me. Hehh, I'm actually sniffling now...

So, one tissue later, we resume. It all got worse after that night. I miss him more, since I know what I have lost. If you ever fall in love like this....

I can only hope that the other person returns your feelings. I suppose it should work then.

He never loved me. He wanted me. Once. Why? I don't know the real reason, but I can make a relatively good guess. Because I was there, when he boozed, horny and freaking lonely. He wanted comfort and, perhaps, a chance to fuck me over, for a change. Sorry about the pun. Totally unintended. However, whatever his reasons, he was the best lover I have ever had. The only one in this body, but hell, he's still the best.

I read from somewhere that skin compatibility is very important in the case of lovemaking. Well, in sex in general. I love his skin. I love his touches (not the punches!!!), I love the uncanny way he knew what to do and how to surprise my body. He did something and I came, again and again. I think that I came about seven times during that night. Mhh, perhaps that's the only thing I love about being a woman. Being multi-orgasmic, that is.

What I hate about being a woman... well, that list would make a phone-directory. My fertility for one. I never suspected that I could get pregnant. If I did, I wouldn't have taken the chance with him at all, not even when we could have rolled on condoms. Which we definitely did not. You are proof of that. Proof of a whisky induced lust and a subdued life-term passion. You have a hell of a heritage, don't you? A survivalist mother - did I just write that? - with a steady aim and a quick trigger finger and some weird principles of life. A father who has a brilliant mind but unrestrained bursts of violence and the determination of a bulldog. And good looks. An assassin and an agent, what a pair! Someone might conclude that these things are two sides of a same coin. Mulder would certainly disagree. He would disagree with everything I say, you can bet on that. So what is going to be your profession? Probably something solitary, since this is a quality we both share.

Not that I want you to be lonely, or even alone. Alone is bad, lonely is the worst. Believe me, I've been there. Correction, I am there. Continuous tense, perhaps permanently continuous.

I just hope you will have a better life than I have had... in general. I would not trade the moments with Mulder though, not for anything. Okay, you got me, I'd trade the punches but not the rare looks he has given me that were not full of hatred.

And definitely not that night. No way.

15th of September, Monday, 2003

Another five days gone. And you freaked me out when you moved. Why couldn't you have given me a warning or something? I almost dropped my coffee, you know. I'm still gasping and - checking - yep, sweating too. This whole thing is scary as hell. Not so scary as the mind-controlling body-ruling oil-shit with a single purpose of getting home (my one close encounter of the third kind... Spielberg did no justice of the eeriness of that kind of closeness, not even close! Believe me!). Okay, so I woke up as a female but this change, however freaky, is not a health threatening condition.

Mhh, at least I hope so.

Anyway, try losing about two days from your life and waking up in an underground hellhole with a UFO by your side and with the feeling that your guts are trying to come out from you through your eyes and nose and every other place, too. I don't recommend it.

THAT was an understatement of the millennia!

Truth was - I was scared shitless, fortunately not literally. I was hungry (again!); I was locked up, I was expecting to die. I screamed my head off and cried, I banged at the door... After two days, I passed out. And when I came to, the door was unlocked. I still don't know who - or what - opened the door. I half-walked, half-crawled out.

There was a tap on the wall. I really didn't care what came out of it; I just had to drink something. It was water. And I survived. Once again.

So, in retrospective, I shouldn't have reacted to you like I did. I have studied this 'condition', I knew that I would feel something but... It is certainly one thing to read about it and other to experience it. I'm not sure, will I ever get used to it.

You really had to move again now, didn't you? Are you having a conversation with me or something? You'll have your say when you arrive, not before, got it?

So where was I? Or, yeah, my weird dark life, as usual- damn, stop it! This is not funny, you know! Or are you angry that I'm not describing here how much I love you? I'm not doing it, because I don't know what I feel about you- and this, what you just did, didn't improve my mood, either. I'm stuck with you, that's all. And I suppose you're stuck with me. One thing is clear: I'm not your usual type of a mother - I wrote it again, didn't I? - So you'll have to be a tough thing to survive with me. If we survive at all...

3rd of October, Friday, 2003

Sometimes I hate to dream. I see good things happening to me, I see people being nice to me, loving me... I have even seen him loving me.

That really-really hurt.

Or telling me that he once did. Which, somehow, feels even worse.

I have seen him smile in real life, but he has never smiled at me.

I saw him smile at me this night. It was so... heart warming. Can't write more....

Been crying non-stop for about two hours. Never thought I could...

Haven't eaten for a day. Yes, I should eat something, but why? Why should I go on?

6th of October, Monday, 2003

I packed my stuff, and off we go. Time to change the scenery: Washington DC for Washington State. Will be one hell of a drive but I've been through worse.

And, you, stop it! I just came out of the toilet!

So why am I feeling like Linda Hamilton at the end of the "Terminator 1"? At least I don't look like her. Yet.

But at least I have goal now.

9th of October, Thursday, 2003

I have not told you everything I do. You know it anyway. All the things I have written are true, but these are the moments when I feel brave enough to plan or just to live. To share myself with this paper and you.

There are other times. Harder ones. When I wake up sweating and shivering, when I drink till I drop - and I know it is not good for either of us - when I find myself wishing that I could cut my veins... Or eat my gun. Would be more appropriate and faster too...

I'm afraid. I'm afraid of everything: the change, the world, the future, you... And him. You killed me couple of times. He kills me every single day. If I heard that he's dead, I might be free, although dead inside. The insane hope, that he would like me at least, keeps me hanging on. Tell me about obsessions...

Or about abysses. I meet them in my mind daily. It gets harder and harder to find even a toehold for dragging myself through yet another day. Or night. Or the grey morning hours. Or everything.

I wrote that I hate dreaming about good things. That's true, I do. I definitely hate nightmares. Like the one when I'm caught again by this bastard whose stench can be tracked from miles away... if you happen to be a dog.

I'm not, but he treated me like I was. I wish I were. I would like to rip out his throat with my teeth - not very sane talk, is it? That department is not strong, I must say. Your father has been in a mental hospital. I haven't, but the boundaries of sanity have blurred for me too.

The last sentences are good examples of how one thinks while heavily drunk. You know that too. That I drink now... But I was telling another bedtime story.

The bastard who hired me - why does it remind me of a Bond movie "The spy who loved me"? - anyway, that bastard would like nothing better than to torture me. Even if it's only mental torture. And the situation I'm in now, would lift his mood enormously. One's renegade agent turns out to be knocked up by his/her worst enemy...

I dreamed that I was in those dark rooms with wood panelling, the way I will look in about two months and.... They had this diary, they read it out aloud, they laughed... It was awful.

And I'm afraid that most of my stories, bedtime or otherwise are like that. You have to have strong guts for my stories, kiddo.

Mulder celebrated his birthday that year in a small bar Frohike had booked. And God forbid, also decorated. It was even cute in a hideous kind of way. Scully danced a lot - some dances even with Frohike - laughed a lot and drunk a lot. Which resulted in crazy things happening in Mulder's bedroom. And being very late the next morning.

13th of October, Monday, 2003

It's his birthday. I found myself looking at the flowers and wondering which ones he would like. Really pathetic. I'm sure Scully bought him some. Or more likely her gift is practical, more sensible. She was always very sensible.

But flowers are nice. I wish someone had ever bothered to give or send me any.

My parents gave me sensible presents, too. Perhaps that's the reason why I dislike sensible people... Yes, I used to hate Scully. Now.... I don't anymore. She helped me. She probably would again, if I asked. Maybe I should? Dial her number, say Hi, and wish her happy Mulder's birthday... Okay, you can call me mean, I'm aware of having my moments.

I won't though, they would probably try to trace the call and if he comes to the phone and tries to win time they might succeed. For a good word from him I'd trade my feeble freedom. I would, sincerely. That's love, "I'm guilty of love in first degree..." Yeah, you are witnessing your mother going not so slightly mad.

Be smart and don't fall in love.

25th of October, Saturday, 2003

Mulder stretched on his bed and smiled, seeing Scully by his side. She had been staying in his place quite frequently. She was asleep on her back, her hair all over the pillow. She was magnificent.

The intense staring, however, made her wake. She shifted, peeked at him, and rolled closer.

"I had a most peculiar dream, Scully," Mulder raked fingers through his hair and turned to slip one hand around her waist. She yawned and mumbled half-sleepily:

"A good one or a bad one?"

"A weird one. You were driving a car-"

"Very peculiar indeed..." she smiled when he pulled her closer and kissed her behind her ear.

"In your pyjamas," he whispered. The smile on her face widened.

"That certainly qualifies." Now the top of her head was under the assault from his kisses.

"On the front seat," Mulder continued, "there was a baby, I'm still not entirely sure whether it was totally human: it had whiskers and a tail, hairless and long..."

Scully was fully awake now: "Are we getting anywhere near rodents, Mulder?"

"You're psychic. Yes. Krycek was on the back seat, he-"

"She."

"Well, she was holding two foot stools, one big and one small. She insisted that the baby got the small one, since... Jeez, how was it..." Mulder struggled to remember. "Oh, yes. 'This is the only motherly gift I bought for my child'."

Scully snickered: "You're not serious?"

Mulder smiled. "I am."

Scully snickered even more and laughter could be heard in her voice. "This is totally ridiculous."

"I'm more than aware of that." They laughed some more.

"Do you ever think that... this thing we have," Mulder motioned a wide gesture. "That it's too good to be true?"

"We fought for this for too many years. We deserve this."

"I know, just..."

"Being paranoid?" Scully looked up to him.

"Perhaps. You know, just when you think that you are comfortable, something happens?"

"Party pooper."

Mulder was right, though. Something did happen.

"Mulder..."

Scully had the important-stuff tone again.

"Yes?"

"I'm pregnant."

He took his glasses off and came up to her. "What?"

"I'm pregnant. I went to see a doctor and did the home test."

For a couple of minutes the basement office was really quiet. A dropping pin would have set off an avalanche of files.

Then Mulder hugged her, very gently and very tightly. "I'm happy." That was all he said, but Scully felt a desperate need for a tissue.

"Damned hormones..."

They went for a long dinner that day. The question 'how did it happen?' surfaced.

"We used protection all the time," Scully commented and reached for the napkin.

"I think so... unless... Do you remember what we did after my birthday party?"

"No, to tell you the truth. But my knees were weak for a half a day later, so we must have fucked like crazy."

"Then that must be the date. I don't remember using anything, you don't either, chances are that we didn't." Mulder watched Scully to calculate. She did look somewhat different...

"It can be." She sighed. "I still would have wished our child to have more sober start."

Mulder laughed but fell suddenly silent.

"What is it?"

"I just realized that I'm almost into the habit of heavy drinking and unprotected sex."

"Krycek..."

"Yep." Mulder agreed.

They were silent for a moment.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" inquired Scully.

"I'm afraid so... What if I am-" Mulder halted but Scully ended his sentence.

"The father of that child too. My idea exactly."

"Until we meet her again, there is no way we can determine that."

"And since we don't know where she is, we better concentrate on more urgent issues. Like what to say to Skinner?" Scully almost laughed when she saw the expression Mulder made.

"Nothing about exactly how we got into this situation."

13th of November, Thursday, 2003

The preparations for the Holiday season are on full swing... Although it is illegal... There are some five days to go till they could officially advertise any Christmas goods... And then the sales go up... Do you know that the suicide rate goes booming, too, at the same period of time? Should we go along? Booming like a rocket on New Years Eve?

Yes, you understood correctly, your mother has been taking a long thorough look on the bottom of the vodka bottle. Kick what you will, I don't care today. My legs hurt, my back hurts, I'm having a real hard time trying to appear just beer-bellied instead of simply pregnant and... Ah, never mind.

There is one good thing after all... Somehow I've been able to write around it... My arm is growing back. I don't know how it happened or why, but it's growing. It itched three months like crazy and I was about to turn to doctors when I noticed that the stump had changed, and it has been growing ever since. It has elbow now... It's so strange to move it.

So, no bad without good, eh?

Yes, I think that I'm harming us, but... Even if the hand grows back - as it seems to be doing, drinking or no drinking - my life as I knew it, would be over. Can you imagine yourself being a fugitive with a newborn? Not very likely. Me neither.

I've been living here for a week. Nice, quiet, full of snow. Thank God for cold and big fluffy parkas. I can still go around and appear almost normal, because here everybody looks heavily over-weight because of the clothing. I just fit in. Sort of.

25th of November, Tuesday, 2003

I took a long look of myself in the mirror and came to an inevitable conclusion - I'm not passing as a man anymore. No man has a stomach big enough to drink so much beer... So I have to move again... To be 'officially' pregnant. Jeez... How in a hell all of this happened? Would, anyone tell me? Please?

28th of November, Friday, 2003

How can one contain so much salt water? I don't know what pushed me into crying - been doing just fine without you, the tearfolks, thank you! - but...

Today started nice, you were quiet, I felt relatively normal - looking like a tanker but not worse. The first surprise came in the bathroom.

The old couple keeping the store told me yesterday that I must have found a new sweet-heart - yeah, that line is getting really thin really fast - anyway, they said that, I asked why and they commented with polite smiles that my eyes were full of energy and light. Feeling myself like a beached whale, I tried to appear shy and happy, wanting to confirm their impression.

But a look in the mirror this morning did confirm their words - about my appearance. I'm fucking glowing!! If this doesn't pass over, I don't know how I'm going to keep my act together.

And the crying fit occurred when I saw two young things really in love and kissing just across the road from my window. They were beaming, too. I just wish I had a similar reason...

Here we go again....

9th of December, Tuesday, 2003

Scully yawned, and smiled. She was alone in Mulder's big bed and the mirror on the ceiling showed one very satisfied Dana Katherine Scully spread underneath the sheets. She felt happy and she looked happy. She stretched and rolled over to look at the clock. There was still some time before she had to leave. She smiled again, one of the pillows in the crook of her arm.

Mulder's apartment was quiet, only the plumbing made some noises, somewhere somebody was washing their dishes or something... Nice domestic noises.

Mulder had gone for his morning-run, although she found it somewhat astonishing that he was up to it after last night's session of bed wrestling. She stretched again, sat up and hunted for her blouse. It had dropped over the end of the bed, which was no surprise: the act of undressing had been rather hasty... to say the least. She was on her second month, had some of the dizziness but the whole load of the horniness a pregnancy can bring along. She wouldn't have got up from the bed, if she could have arranged things that way...

'Skinner wouldn't approve...' Scully grinned, got up as she was and headed for the shower. She had to get there before Mulder. Skinner had hardly kept himself from shouting at them, when they had confronted him with her 'condition'. There had been a lot of paperwork, and he had mentioned that they might even be reassigned to separate posts for a while, but since Skinner had promised to keep their relationship a secret just between them three, they could still work together until.. well, until things were too obvious to ignore. Until then they would keep their usual low profile and live as happily as they could.

The water hit her and she leaned into its hot touch. Now she thought about the first child she had carried, William.... and Emily.... The sorrow hit her but the warmth helped her to endure it. She had been doing this masochistic mood-lowering stuff for a week but it kept her professional during the office hours. She couldn't go around, performing autopsies with a goofy grin on her face. 'The Spooky Missis has gone over the edge at last' she heard the rumors in her head. No, she needed perspective and the lost chances gave her that.

Without any qualms she put on Mulder's bathrobe. She had taken care of him more times than she cared to count and it was sort of a payback time: his things were relentlessly used by her when she stayed in his place... Not that Mulder minded at all.

'Speak of the devil', Scully heard the keys in the lock and he came in, yelled his 'Hello' and headed for the shower. She smiled, no longer so crazily happy but still content and she went to make the coffee they both desperately needed in the morning.

"I picked up the mail."

"You have mail, Mulder?" Scully looked at him over the rim of her mug. Well, one of his mugs that she had claimed as her own. He was wearing another bathrobe, a dark blue one, and stood there - barefooted.

He looked good.

"One newspaper! You smell edible..." he had come close, his arms went around her, just under her breasts. She felt him nuzzling her, whispering into her ear: "-although you have raided my shower-gel again."

"And coffee... Guilty as charged. Help yourself." Scully felt herself smiling inspite of her mood regulation procedure when she saw how Mulder padded across the kitchen to fetch his favorite poison. He was so-so .... She couldn't quite find the right word, but she liked him like that. Very much so.

She shifted the newspaper closer and opened it. A small envelope dropped from the folds. She took it up. It was plain, only Mulder's address on it. Somehow she didn't believe it could be a bomb so she opened it.

"What do you have there?" Mulder walked upto the table and took a seat.

"Looks like a Christmas card. Mmm, 'Merry Christmas, Scully, and happy Hanukah, Mulder. K.', that's it." She gave the card to Mulder.

"Hmm..." he was eyeing the card and drinking the coffee at the same time. "I have an eerie feeling that we both know whom this thing came from.... the one whose name starts with 'K'."

"Why would he-she send you a card?" Scully didn't even pretend to understand.

"Perhaps the Christmas spirit got her? Pregnant women are unpredictable, you know." Mulder gave her very suggestive leer. Scully restrained her smile, although she was fully aware of him teasing her about the last night's actions. 'Well, did we fuck thoroughly or not?' That thought came so abruptly that she burst into giggles before she could contain herself once more.

Mulder was watching her with concern.

"Are you all right?"

"Absolutely.... Just giving you an example of the unrestrained reactions of gestation."

8th of December, Monday, 2003

I did a really stupid thing. The second stupidest thing after going to bed with him. I sent him a card.

It became unbearable to look around at people getting happier and more excited about Christmas with every day that passed. I've tried to drink less, mostly for my own good. So I had to do something different... I was at the same small shop again, there were the cards laid out... Somehow it occurred to me that by sending him a card I could remind him that I'm still alive, still a stain on his conscience... I wanted to hurt him. And, yes, her, too. She has all the 'cards' now, she has him... So I hurt him in the kindest way.

After I had posted it, I regretted it at once. The postage stamp gives my location away, but mostly it would be better that he was no longer aware of me being alive at all. What if he found out about you? He would just hate me more, that's for sure. Perhaps he could live with the memory of spending fucking quality time with one particular Alex Krycek - the emphasis being on the word 'fucking', of course - but he would kill me, if he knew that the aforesaid 'quality time' had results - the results that really are asking for a beating! I'm sick and tired of you doing kung fu or whatever it is! STOP RIGHT NOW!

Must be my child, getting people pissed off with it even BEFORE being born... Or actually we share that quality, to think of it. He is a real pain - most of the time. So why do I care? Why do I feel so bad that I want to hurt him?

11th of December, Thursday, 2003

Maybe I should leave? He might decide to track me down... Scully must have told him about the night visit and our discussion. And the disc. Jeez' they seem to share everything!

Why did that hurt now? Heh-heh, stupid me...

17th of December, Wednesday, 2003

Today the blues hit again. Perhaps I should just let go and....

I didn't get up from the bed, there seemed to be no point.

I don't even feel like crying much anymore, just lying here and letting the mood spiral into the abyss... It is dark here, hopeless, the story of my life.

I don't want to go through this... I don't want this life, this change, and this child... All I wanted was him to like me.

The saddest thing is that he might have liked me. But not now, not with the things we have in our past. The word 'doomed' comes to mind, I wonder why.

In my case Shakespeare was right: my love's labour is lost. For nothing than pain.

More pain will come, of course. In another labour.

Unless I get enough courage to end this all....

20th of December, Saturday, 2003

"Mulder, are we going to the dinner on the 26th?"

Mulder sighed and hid his face in the pillow. "I don't know... I'm not that great with people."

Something that bore the weight of Scully and had hands indistinguishable from her climbed onto his back and started to tickle him - fortunately through the covers. He squirmed and tried to get away, but the pathologist knew exactly when and what to attack and he capitulated:

"Alright, we'll go, we'll go! Just-" A red wave of hair washed over his face and then her lips were on top his. He didn't fight off this assault, though.

"So," he said when he got his mouth back. "Who's going to be there?"

"The usual family gathering, brothers, their families.... my mother."

"Oouuhh... are we going to have to be there long?" he laughed when he got tickled again. "Okay-Okay!! We'll stay as long as Your Majesty of Patholo-" a pillow landed on his face.

"Call me that once more and you'll end up on that table under my scrutinizing eye, Mulder!"

The pillow nodded its approval.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" She lifted the assault weapon and found a red-faced Mulder blinking at her happily.

"I would be naked under that sheet..."

"Pervert, you'd be cold and stiff and dead!"

"But still naked. And stiff is not so bad, either...." The rest of the conversation didn't require words.

24th of December, Wednesday, 2003

I'm cooking. I can't believe this, but I am. I used to like it. I used to be quite good at it. Time to remember how to be good at something.

I cried yesterday, almost wept my heart out... Why?

The old lady from the store gave me a home-baked gingerbread and wished me 'Merry Christmas'. I saw and felt that she meant it.

Nobody had ever given me anything from the pure goodness of their heart. There was always a price attached. And she gave me something just because she thought I was worth it...

Jesus! I'm hunting for another tissue...

I hardly got out of the store, I couldn't see, because of the water leaking out of my traitorous eyes. Me, traitor, had been given a gift... I felt like sitting down on the pile of snow and weeping on the spot like a small child. 'Shameless' is the word for this, I guess. I can't remember the last time somebody was nice to me. Made an extra effort for me.

Mmm, actually, I do. Scully. The Mad Patcher's Tea Party. Though there was a price - she wanted information, she got some. The tea was extra, though.

The lady, however... She really thought that this barn-like being - aka me - was worth of a gift. I never realised that pure goodness could make one feel so helpless and whiny. I crawled back to my hole and held that fragile piece of candy in my hand and wept and wept on the bed until the pillow was soaked.

That gingerbread is sitting on the shelf in front of me. A remembrance of my worth and people's good will.

25th of December, Thursday, 2003

Been drinking again.

Hope, damn it, is hard to kill.

I've hoped to get free from this...

Every time when I've not seen him for a while, I start to feel better. Hope for immunity, wishing it done.

Not this time, though. You take care of that.

Each time I see him - the feeling is back. A thousandfold worse: a raw throbbing ache that just won't dull. Each time....

The food, the things I made, were good, been eating the leftovers. Somehow oat cookies and mustard on smoked bacon have been favourites for a long time now...

Food cravings? Moi?

Well, drunk and pregnant, then why not also food cravings... Then why not the tickling feeling in the left arm that somehow is back... fingers don't move very well yet, but... Should be happy about it...

Nope. Just checked. Not happy at all.

Instead of that... Miss him. Like crazy. Getting on pop-music flashbacks again...

Talking about flashbacks: there was one moment in that night when he actually held me. He was tired of - you know. Perhaps he forgot to remove his hands but for the brief moment he was holding me and I felt.... safe.

Call me nuts, but I did.

Even loved, when his breath was warming my shoulder.

Of course I'm fooling myself. He is with Scully now. Drinking eggnog and exchanging gifts...

Envious? Sure.

Though what gift could I wish for? A bullet with my name engraved on it? I'm sure one is out there, along with Mulder's precious truth.

Me... sad... drunk... very drunk... Looking occasionally at the gingerbread - shaped like a heart, by the way - sitting now on the nightstand under the lamp. Cradling in one arm the box of tissues, in the other the bottle. Notebook sits on top of you.

Not the way an expectant mother should spend her time.

Doesn't help. Still miss him. Sorry about the water marks on the page....

26th of December, Friday, 2003

Mulder closed the bathroom door and sighed aloud in relief. Finally alone, although only for a brief moment.

They had arrived at 'Maggie's' - as Mulder had so elegantly put it and almost got punched for that - three hours ago. After the usual exchange of 'hellos' and 'how are yous' with Maggie - and after Scully had given away something she had been mysteriously cradling in her arms while they drove out here - they were shown to the livingroom.

And the rollercoaster of hell started. Both brothers were very much there, they both wanted to get to know the 'strange' man who has claimed their sister. Well, Charlie wanted to know, Bill just stood there like a big dark cyclone ready to come down hard on him.

The fact that they are co-workers with Scully went down smoothly, Charlie was also happy to learn that they were partners - "So you protect her well, don't you?" had Charlie said and Mulder, his mouth full of hot punch, nodded trying hard not to think back to the abduction. Bill raised his eyebrow - 'that gesture must run in the family' - but kept his silence. At least Maggie was fortunately out of the hearing distance.

He had to describe some of their assignments, he made an effort and talked about the funny things - like the cockroaches and the mobile home vampires.

Thank God, they both laughed.

Then came the first round at the table. The female horde - Maggie, Scully and the two wives - carried to the table so many dishes that Mulder felt almost seasick. But blessed be Scully, who sat quickly next to him, secretly patted his knee and smiled so brightly, that he forgot all about the others. She even had to nudge him to eat something and not just sit there being happily unaware.

The brothers noticed his doting, of course. There was a conversation between them that Mulder didn't quite catch but felt alarmed about.

When Scully had left with her mother to do something in the kitchen, and the wives - who somehow didn't give him any impression whatsoever - tended the three children who were running constantly around, Charlie leaned closer to him and asked:

"She is amazing, isn't she?"

"Yes, she definitely is," Mulder agreed.

"So, are you partners in the whole meaning of the word?"

Mulder paused before answering the common double-entendre. He was almost sure, that he still wouldn't qualify as a proper son-in-law, well, in Charlie's case, brother-in-law, but he also had the eerie feeling that he shouldn't lie. Bracing himself for the later argument with Scully, he nodded.

"Good, you two know each other long enough... But if I hear anything that suggests that she is unhappy...." Charlie concluded and both of the brothers gave him looks that could have frightened even aliens.

Before the coffee and cakes occurred a break - and now he was looking at himself in the bathroom mirror and wishing feverishly that he could leave with Scully and make her happy, 'so about three times in a row'.

Eventually he had to come out or Scully would say something about desk-jobs and constipation. He definitely didn't want that. His name in this family was tainted anyway. Mulder sighed, dried his hands and stepped out from the door - only to almost bump into Scully who was carrying some tray again.

"Watch-" she only shouted when the tray went sailing towards the floor. Somehow they managed to save it from crashing - both on their knees.

"You really must watch were you're going", she scolded half-seriously. She took the tray when she stood up.

"Then what would I need you for?" Mulder smiled and, then noticing that they were alone, he leaned in and kissed her quickly.

"For kissing and keeping you honest?"

"Touché. But what is this thing anyway? Smells nice..." he tried to poke at the a bit out of shape dark mush on the tray but it was snatched away.

"Something I made."

"Perhaps the mysterious package in your lap?"

"The same. How perceptive of you."

"And it is...?"

"A mystic reminder of Old World... Christmas pudding." She smiled at him and walked to the living room. Mulder started to follow but stopped - the brothers and wives and children were there too... He didn't want to confront the Hydra of Scullys... his own red head was quite enough for him.

Scully found him still standing in the corridor.

"Why don't you go back to the living room, I heard that Bambi was quite a hit..." she teased.

"Mmm..." made Mulder. Noncommittally, he hoped. No such luck.

"Haa, you are scared, aren't you?"

"Scared?"

"I understand, Bill is a big man and Charlie isn't that small either... And the wives... and children...." she was really enjoying this.

"May I say that the teasing is useless. I'll go wherever I want, whenever I want."

Scully snorted, amused. "That's real man's talk... Are you enough of a man to come and help me in the kitchen, then? Until the time comes, when the man wants to go to the living room again?"

"Okay." The-Man-Mulder said at once.

The kitchen was full of smells, the strongest being cinnamon and custard and something alcoholic that Mulder couldn't quite place. 'Scully would... and give the list of its chemical properties as well - and all from the top of her head.'

"Mulder, it's good that you came." Maggie grabbed his arm and dragged him near to an oven that radiated heat. "The cinnamon buns will be ready in a minute. Here're the gloves, don't burn yourself... I have to -" And she rushed from the kitchen again carrying something. Scully was putting some cherries on top of- something - that looked suspiciously like an ice-cream cake. The way her fingers moved over the creamy surface gave Mulder a rush he never thought he could have from the simple act of decorating a cake.

"Earth to Mulder!"

"Yes?"

Scully waved towards the oven, couple of cherries still in her palm.

"The buns! Take them out!"

He obeyed, and didn't even burn himself as he placed the hot plate near to the sink. "You haven't told her about the other bun, have you?" Mulder looked at Scully who finished the dressing and raised her head.

She shrugged "No, not yet. I think I'll wait until we can be alone with her. It would be better than turning this family gathering into a surprise party." She walked closer and pushed a cherry into his mouth. "You seem to really like me doing household-chores, don't you?" Her voice had changed; it was the tone that drove him crazy. Munching at the cherry, he mumbled:

"Don't tease me..."

"Where's the man now?" Scully chortled as she referred back to their recent conversation.

"The man is still very much here..." Mulder pulled her into a tight embrace and when she didn't fight, he gave her the Casanova back bow while kissing her.

Half of that cherry ended up in her stomach.

12th of January, Monday, 2004

Guess, what?

I'm drunk. After two days of total soberness. Not that it matters to anyone.

I must say that the constant visits to the local liqueur store must have caught the attention of the locals. They probably think I'm an alcoholic...

Perhaps they're right, I can't tell the difference anymore.

They probably think I'm someone whose sweetheart left her in this distressed and disgraced condition... In a way, they're right.

I would feel so much better if you hadn't happened, if I hadn't met him.

If I wouldn't love him.

Yeah, right... As if I truly believed any of this I just wrote. It's the alcohol talking, it seems to make more sense than I do.

Yeah, an alcoholic mother tops it all, doesn't it, kiddo? With all the other nice qualities you inherit... you'll be a smash.

One thing must be said though - alcohol surely helps to bear pain. And loneliness. And fear...

Somehow there has been a lot of fear in me lately. I'm alert all the time, can't sleep properly. You're behaving yourself quite nicely, but I still fear something... Started to sleep with the gun under my pillow again.... Not that it seems to alleviate any of the sense of dread I have.

Just spent two hours reading and sipping vodka. I used to love Bradbury before the dark side of my own story started - you know, the aliens, the feelings, all that crap.

Now I hate him. Even found it totally eerie to read over the "Little Assassin". Would you grow up to be one, or would you try to kill me, as that child in that story?

Me being rather prone to drinking by now - I would be an easy target. Very easy.

That thought frightened me.

It really did.

I have to stop drinking.

If anyone wants my head, I should at least be aware of the threat. Right now it means - I have to be sober.

And afraid.

Fuck that, I've been afraid for most of my life. I'm well acquainted with that feeling. Time to embrace it again. Still better than nursing a 'healthy' slow brain damage.

16th of January, Friday, 2004

Mulder woke with a start.

He had been having that nightmare again. The same one for three consecutive nights. Not that having nightmares would be anything new but it was still a personal record for one and the same thing to come up three times... in a row.

He sat up, slipped his feet to the floor and looked around. It was very early. He didn't bother to look at the clock, the darkness outside said it all.

The dream kept nagging at him. He sighed, stood, stretched, went to kitchen for a drink.

It still nagged at him, when he returned and fell to the couch. It nagged at him as if asking something, but because he never remembered what he saw - just knew that it was always the same - he couldn't figure out what it wanted.

'Damn dreams...'

In the morning, after taking the usual jog around the blocks, Mulder grabbed his newspaper and pounded upstairs. While holding the paper between his teeth to open the door, he suddenly understood one thing about the nightmare: it had happened in a place full of snow.... in a cold place. At first he thought about Antarctica - a place of some acquaintance - but it didn't feel right. 'Has to be the Northern Hemisphere, then.'

He threw the paper to the table - and found himself waiting for an envelope to drop out. 'The last envelope that didn't contain bills was....' He realised that it had been Krycek's. 'Just what you need, Mulder, to think about that thing you did, that's really good for your sanity.' He scolded himself but he couldn't stop either.

'Where's the damned card any way? Did I throw it away?'

Mulder found the card underneath of a pile of folders beside his computer. The card was the same as always. It hadn't sprouted legs or hands. Just a piece of printed paper with a few words inside.

'So why does it feel so important?' Mulder stared at the card. The card stared back at him, probably hoping to turn blank again.

A minute ticked by.

'The envelope... There must be a stamp.'

It took a lot longer to find that thing. Mulder thanked himself of not being better housekeeper, because the trashcan the envelope had ended up in was overflowing and a proper housekeeper would have thrown the contents away weeks ago.

There was a stamp. A quick search on the computer and Mulder became aware of three cities of that particular name existing in the States. Only one of them was in the northern part of the country. In Washington state.

'She's long gone... she wouldn't stay in a one place, so you could track her down, Mulder!' But he couldn't shake off the feeling that he had found a vital piece of a puzzle - one to unlock his nightmares.

Two more nights with the unnerving unremembered frightening dreams and then came the last straw, the one to break Mulder's fragile patience.

Scully was nuzzling his neck and making herself really comfortable in his lap - and he had finally managed to forget about the nagging voice - when the computer beeped. Mulder had been able to shut his machine up so that it bleeped only when something of interest came up.

Scully sighed, she was aware of that arrangement, too.

"You want to look at it now?" she asked, her tone carefully neutral. He shrugged but she knew him better. Kissing him sweetly, she slipped off his lap and leaned back on the couch, making the leather creak. "Go and look, perhaps it will ease your mind from whatever has been bothering you lately..."

"You noticed?"

"As if we hadn't been working side by side for years. Of course I noticed. Now go and check your mail!" and she kicked him gently, the impact on his thigh almost convincing Mulder that he really shouldn't get up.

But he did and after tugging the mouse he saw that the e-mail was from the Gunmen. "Mmm. Let's see what the unwholesome trinity has found this time."

"Gunmen?"

"Yep."

Scully smiled, hoping to hear something really odd and funny, but Mulder, after couple of chuckles, grew silent. Scully bore the silence for a while, but then stood and walked over to Mulder, who sat there, scrolling the news.

"What's the matter?"

"There has been a massive UFO sighting in Washington State. Actually, frequent sightings... Five nights in a row."

"So?" She put her head on his shoulder and he leaned in, feeling her warmth and the softness of her hair tickling his neck. He continued to read, now out loud.

"These brightly colored lights are centered around the little city of - oh my God..."

"What's the matter?"

"It's the same city-" Mulder's hand snaked inside the paper pile that in Scully's opinion had no order whatsoever, but he managed to catch the thing he wanted and pull it out without tipping the wobbly pyramid over. With a twist of his fingers the envelope turned the right side up for Scully to read it. "-where this thing came from."

Scully took the envelope. "So what are you saying then?"

"That we should go there and check it out."

"IT out? Are you referring to her as 'it' now?"

"I meant the UFOs."

"But there is something more." Scully put the envelope down. "You're relieved now. What's been bothering you?"

"I've been having these nightmares... I don't recall the content but... The envelope seemed to be important."

"Seemed to be? And because it seemed to be important and there might be UFOs on that place, you want to go out there? It's very cold there, you know."

"I know. And somebody out there is really afraid."

"What?!" She considered getting angry, but Mulder met her eyes and there was pure desperation in his. He had been experiencing fear, that was obvious.

"It is the only thing I can recall from the nightmares. Somebody fears for its life."

"And you assume that IT is Krycek."

"Would be logical, considering the co-incidence of the locations."

"Why would she even be there? If anyone wants to hide, why in a one place for so long?"

"Who would suspect a pregnant woman?"

"Like she would advertise it..." Scully went back to the couch. "I've thought about her life, she wouldn't show herself at all."

"You've thought about her?"

"Yes. If she changed - and I emphasize the 'if' - she doesn't want anyone to know about it. She used to be a killer, a thug... Think what would happen when this kind of information leaked out?"

"I'd rather not."

There was a moment of thoughtful silence. "Do you still want to go, Mulder?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Because of the UFOs, or Krycek, or even because of the child?"

"Scully!"

"You must have thought about that, Mulder. What if it's yours?"

"I-... I don't know. I really don't know." He came to sit on the couch, placing his elbows on his knees. He was a sorry sight when he mumbled: "I can fuck up my life so easily..."

"True. But what if it yours? What if you have a chance to ask her and she says it's yours?"

"Why assume that she is even pregnant anymore? In her place... wouldn't you have had an abortion?"

Scully looked puzzled for a split second. "Well... yes. In her position and with her background, I think that would be a viable choice."

"But you're not convinced that she did."

"I'm certain that she didn't."

Mulder blinked. "Why?"

"Call it a hunch. I just know." Scully snuggled closer. "Are you still insistent of going?"

Mulder played with her hair. "I won't, if you don't want me to..."

"But it will nag at you. Okay, let's go. At least the UFOs make it an official X-file."

20th of January, Tuesday, 2004

I've been thinking about the future. Not a thing I usually, or moreover, casually do. Anyway...

I don't know exactly what I'm going to do when the labour starts (I hovered over the l-word for about ten seconds before I managed to write it... Am I so afraid of that thing?! I having no problems whatsoever pulling a trigger to kill - either human or alien - yet I am struggling with a word! Having a real hard time with a word! I can't believe it!)

Back to the main theme. The other thing I'm not sure about, is how to arrange my life after - yep, again the same word - after I have had this child. I can't picture myself with a child, I just can't.

I could never picture myself even as a father... Now I'm supposed to be a mother... What an irony! Mulder would like it, although in this case he would agree with me - I'll make a terrible parent, of whatever sex. He's right this time and I both hate and love him for it. Love him, because he can assess people by simply glancing at them and because he is just... him. Hate him because I generally hate stating the obvious. Not that I haven't done that in more occasions I care to remember.

Me and parenthood are totally contrary things... I wouldn't have the patience my mother had - to endure the unruly child - aka me - and to take care of the household and to prepare meals and to love her husband. I can see that now - that they really did love each other, my parents, that is. Although my father seldom mentioned anything about the work, they seemed to have things to talk about. I wish I had things to talk about that wouldn't scare the shit out of the listener... They had. Lucky them.

They could also afford to have a child around breaking things. I did some calculations and what a cosmic number emerged - all for the items a newborn would need. Children are damn expensive.

You didn't like that, did you? Is that the reason you are trying to make it to the football world cup series?

But you are going to be expensive, there is no doubt about it.... Yeah, sure, kick away, my intestines have been through worse. Not lately, however.

Hmm, yeah, even a brief thought about Mulder is not good for my mental health - or what's left of it. I'm like an addict who knows that there is a dose, just out of my reach. A fix I should have to feel whole again... So where are the tissues?

Whole... what would I give to feel mentally whole? Not to feel the pain? The constant withdrawal from- Why do I torture myself? Eh, whatever. At least I have acquired physical wholeness - and annoying roundness - I have now TWO fully functional arms - real arms with elbows, forearms, wrists, palms and ten fingers. If I wasn't as pregnant as hell, I would be feeling like I'd gone to heaven. I had tried, and almost succeeded, in making myself believe that the loss of a limb doesn't make a difference. Now, having it back, I don't understand how I could have thought that way. A person adapts to almost anything, I suppose. When there's no choice, one either bends or breaks. I prefer to bend.

Not that I'm really able to do that just right now... Another moment of bitter irony, the kind that he likes...

I wish that I could see him once more. If the labour goes well, I might be able to. If there is a future.


	4. Revisited

Revisited

23rd of January, Friday, 2004

"Why did she choose a place in the middle of fucking nowhere?" Mulder ranted angrily, as their rental Range Rover made a desperate attempt to skid off the road - the third time in the last twenty minutes.

Scully, who held on the seat like a bulldog, gritted through her teeth: "For that very reason. And Mulder, please let me remind you that these road conditions need a different approach. Like being careful-"

The car skidded again. There were two reasons for that - the road was very slippery indeed, and Mulder had raised the stakes by using his most reckless style of driving.

"You are going to get us killed, Mulder, if you don't slow down!" Scully's voice hadn't risen in volume but Mulder knew that a little more carelessness and he might find himself ditched on the snowy road. However picturesque the scenery, it was damn cold out there, so he gave in, slowing the machine down. Scully sighed in relief and stopped gripping the seat.

"Why are you so hasty about this, anyway?" she asked, fishing two sandwiches out of the bag. "It didn't bother you for a long time..."

"I want to sort this thing out. I want to know why she did what she did and..."

"- and whether or not you are the father." She unwrapped one of the sandwiches and gave it to him.

"Yes." He accepted the snack.

"How do you feel about her?"

"I feel nothing. The fact that she might be carrying my child doesn't mean that I have feelings for her."

"Perhaps you should have." The latex snapped in her voice: Scully's comment came in a tone that she usually reserved for dictating autopsy reports, her hands elbow-deep in somebody's guts.

"What?!" He almost lost the control of the car again, because he took his eyes off the road. Scully saw them growing wide. 'It was rather unexpected statement from me, I admit that much.'

"You had to like her, at least a little, to do the wild thing with her. You had to be attracted to her."

"Scully!"

"Mulder!" she parroted. "There had to be something-"

"Yes, like booze, an oceanful of Scotch!"

"And her hands on you, smoothing that hurting forehead of yours..." Scully half-teased, then gaped before saying slowly. "Like I've done so many times..."

"No, Scully, no. Don't make that connection." It hurt Mulder to hear Scully comparing herself with Krycek. They were too different. And whatever had made him to give in to his lowest animal instincts, and even made it possible for him perform on that fatal night, now it ate his soul away. Scully should never compare herself with anyone. She was in a class on her own. A class Mulder respected and loved and was willing to die for.

"Why not?"

"I love you. Don't doubt that."

"I'm not doubting that. I'm just saying that you might have responded physically to a similar touch, or to a touch that had a certain degree of similarity, even if only on the mechanical level."

"May I remind you that she was the one who kissed me first."

"Like some years ago. You asked her about that kiss. Don't look so surprised, she told me." Scully pushed some strands out of the way of her eyes. "Why did it interest you?"

"I thought... I thought that she was a guy and, well... it was odd, you know."

"Using the adjective 'unresolved'?" she questioned and took the first bite from her sandwich she had prudently purchased from the shop next to the car rental.

"I did?"

"Mmmm" Scully confirmed, her mouth full.

"Who the hell knows? I can't remember much more of that night than I have already told you." 'Only that one expression on her face... The unsuitable and so natural fragility.' That flashback hurt him, differently than the other pain from the comparison. 'What am I doing? Feeling guilty because I didn't have a burning desire for fucking Alex Krycek? Just because I recalled her facial expression?'

"You better remember something. I'm sure when we meet her, she might want to ask you, why you went along."

"As if I don't think about it all the time now..." Mulder noticed a sign for a gas station and he decided to get them something hot to drink. 'Any distraction is good right now...' "I'm pulling over. Do you want something?"

"Burning hot tea."

"Tea?"

"I'm thinking about the future, even if you don't." Scully sighed seeing Mulder's totally puzzled expression and explained. "Me, pregnant? Caffeine not very good for the baby?"

"Oh... Okay. Then tea it is." Mulder climbed out of the car, quickly zipped up his parka and jogged to the small shop. He still felt uneasy about the emotional mystery he had just experienced. He had been able to stop thinking about that night of error. Only the nightmares had pulled it back to the surface again... 'So why does her fragility bother me?' He ordered the XL teas and drummed the edge of the counter with his fingers. 'And why do I always fuck up my relationships?'

They arrived in the small city very late. The road conditions had gone from bad to worse and they had both wished that instead of wheels the vehicle could have had skis. They really needed to get there - wherever the 'there' was - in one and hopefully in a living piece.

When they finally had registered and taken their keys - separate rooms as it was proper for Special Agents of Federal Bureau - they stumbled to the rooms. They cast off the heavier layers of clothing which had provided needed warmth but they still needed extra 'warmth'. The situation resolved by them almost simultaneously opening the connecting door - Mulder sensed that the door was being held before he opened it.

"So," said Scully, standing on the doorway. "Are we going to break the procedure... again?"

"Rules are, yadda, yadda... Come in, you woman!"

23rd of January, Friday, 2004

It's not so late, but I dozed a little. And I had the weirdest dream this far.

I was a woman there - yeah, I'm quite acutely aware that I'm one now, too.

I mean I was really feminine - slender, my skin was smooth, the kind they call silky, I think. My hair was also longish, over the shoulders at least. When I looked at the mirror above, however, I could recognize my features in that female face, and how very relaxed the face was... Oh, the mirror was above a double bed... and I wasn't alone on it. The feeling was light, happy, something I remember from the brief period of my childhood. I felt really happy, satisfied... Yep, it was definitely an afterglow of something I'd call a mind-crushing climax. I couldn't quite see him, the man who was holding me in a manner, as I was something very valuable and fragile. His face somehow blurred but I knew that he loved me. And he wanted me, and we were going to live happily forever after.

Can a dream get more corny and Barbara Cartland? Nope, not good old pink Barbara, there is never any sex in her books. Never mind.

I - the dream-me, that is - had just had sex. Good sex, and a lot of it. I sat up and saw myself in the other mirror. I was pregnant, like I'm now, but he wrapped me into something that was made from the finest wool, cashmere... It was so incredibly soft, warm, loving, like his fingers brushing my hair from my neck and his lips kissing the skin there....

He was happy about the child, our child and when he finally looked up over my shoulder I recognized him. Yeah... Your father, kiddo.

He would never ever like this kind of domestic bliss, and even less so with me. Or the female variation of me. But the feeling of lightness is still with me. I should leave tomorrow and find another city with a good little ER. Better go and start packing... I wonder how I'm going to get up, when I have to collect that second pair of boots from the closet?

24th of January, Saturday, 2004

Mulder yawned and blinked sluggishly when the smell of fresh black coffee reached his nose.

"Hey, my handsome sleepyhead." Scully appeared in his line of vision holding two mugs.

"Hi... Coffee?"

"Yep." Scully scooted next to him and gave him one of the mugs. "Morning is not perfect without it."

"But you said that the caffeine-"

"One cup in a day won't hurt her."

"Her? Did the ultra sound tell-"

"I just know the child is a girl. Call it a motherly instinct." She folded her legs under her and rested against the pillows.

"I'd call it a type of foreseeing." Mulder mumbled, his nose in the mug.

"I'd call you a workaholic." Scully stared at the ceiling, then sipped her poison of the day. "Mulder... We're here to investigate the UFO sightings. There are about twenty people who saw... something. But you're not going to come and help me with those interviews, are you?"

"Not before the morning run, no."

"I meant after the run, and shower, and putting on the suit and tie..."

"I'm coming. However tempting the chance to find Krycek is, we have to have something to write about in the report that would at least try to explain why the FBI has to cover the travelling costs."

"You're not ditching me to search for another woman? How come?"

"For another woman? Of course not. But give me aliens, implants, secret government cover ups, and I'm out of here in a second."

The weekend interviews were exactly what they were expecting - a bunch of nervous locals that got even more nervous when they were introduced to the representatives of FBI. The four housewives, two teenagers, one truck driver, one bookshop keeper, and two waitresses were waiting to talk to Scully. Mulder got two old spinsters, one bachelor - whom he suspected to be gay, another truck driver, a carpenter, a local drunkard, three schoolchildren - from the almost reasonable age before the teens, and a delivery boy. They all told the same story, although with a slight variations - there were lights over the city, under the clouds, going sometimes through them, and moving in weird ways - not like helicopters or planes.

"Well, are you finished?" Mulder peeked in to the room where Scully was sitting behind a table writing something. She looked bored.

"Yes. I wrapped up the last testimony. Of sorts. And I'd kill for something full of harmful simple sugars and fats."

"Mutual understanding is the thing I've always liked about you. Let's raid the local bakery."

The local bakery actually tripled as a small store and a tiny cafeteria with nine chairs and three tables. They took the table near the window. They could see out but the two leafy plants prevented others seeing them. Scully bought two pieces of cake- one with strawberries and other with cappuccino cream. Mulder settled for one but large piece of pie, which had at least apple, pineapple and something else in it. It was very good. So were Scully's cakes from which he stole a spoonful.

"So we have finished the official part of investigation." Scully dabbed her mouth with the pale blue paper napkin.

"Yes, we have." Mulder finished his coffee and looked at the street.

"Where do you want to begin?"

"I think we just got lucky. Look."

Scully turned and forgot to close her mouth for a moment.

It was Krycek; Scully would have recognised her anywhere. From the first look at him, way back then, she had committed his features into her memory. The new partner, the one who had taken her place... And she had decided to hate him. It wasn't hard, and it got even easier with each new fact she learned about him. But now... to see, to really see that she was pregnant... Very pregnant, for that matter. She was the embodiment of the phrase 'swollen with new life'.

'I hope', Scully thought 'I won't look THAT round...' It was somehow improper to hate HER now.

Krycek walked on the street, wearing those 'maternity' denim overalls and a longer version of the parka. She entered the shop across the street, oblivious of the two pairs of big round eyes tracking her movements.

"Oh my God."

Mulder nodded. "I couldn't have put it better." He grabbed his parka and shrugged it on.

"Mulder..."

"Yes?"

"You better use her first name. She's probably here with a false ID and it's easier to explain away a nickname..."

"You've thought a lot about this meeting, haven't you?"

"Yes, I have." Scully looked at him, her eyes clear and serious.

"Why?"

"Because you slept with her."

"Hello, Alex."

Krycek turned, not believing her ears.

But there he stood, with his usual placid look on his face, and even one of the infamous ties visible under the parka.

"Mulder..."

"Aren't you happy to see me?"

"About as happy as I'd be encountering the personification of a tooth ache. What are you doing here?"

"An X-file. Lights in the sky, you know the drill."

"Not here to gloat?" Her voice was low in order not to attract the attention of the other customers or the salespersons. 'And I'm standing here with a freaking can of beef in my hands and I'm talking to the love of my life and...'

"About what, your longer hair?" Which was true, Krycek's hair was about as long as it had been on their first meeting.

Krycek blinked and then almost snorted with laughter. "Hair?! How about how I look like a pregnant elephant or that I've now got two arms? Hair! You're just amazing, Mulder, just bloody fucking amazing!"

"I just thought you might not like gloating..."

Krycek shrugged and threw the can into her shopping cart with an angry clank. "I knew that I should've travelled further... To Alaska, perhaps."

Mulder fingered some package but grinned a little: "Would have been fitting. There are Rat Islands..."

"Well, you're definitely NOT here gloating." Krycek glared at him angrily. "What do you want?"

"To talk to you."

"About my hair?" Her light green eyes were dangerously sparkling.

"No. About that night and-"

"We fucked, that's all there was to it!" She really-really hoped that Mulder would believe it. 'I've always lied so well...' "So may I go now, Special Agent Mulder?"

Mulder tried to answer, but Krycek didn't wait. She pushed by him, threw some money on the counter and stormed out like a supertanker out of control. Mulder could only shrug and jog after her.

"Would you wait?"

"Or what? You'll pull a gun on me like you used to? Or maybe you want to slap me around a bit? What will it be?"

"Perhaps we all should sit down and try to behave like grown ups."

Scully's voice made Krycek spun around. 'Not her too... Can it get worse than this?'

"Hello, Scully." It came out sounding almost civil, although she wished she could disappear from Scully's judging eyes.

"Hello... So how about sitting down?"

The little bakery accommodated the odd group. Scully continued to eat her last piece of cake, while the two others kept up a staring contest until Scully had had enough. She coughed.

"How have you been?"

Krycek snorted again. "Pregnant."

"Right, it was a stupid question. But you two have some things to discuss and this is as good a time as any to tackle them." She shut up and watched the ex-co-workers shoot each other icy looks. "I'll go to the ladies room, but please, don't kill each other while I'm gone. And don't finish my cake, Mulder!"

"Do you always steal her food?" Krycek asked innocently, when Scully was out from the hearing distance.

"Constantly." Mulder eyed her, half of him struggling with the plain fact in front of him, half of him filled with weird peace - he could have his answers now. "Let's use the time, shall we?"

Krycek shrugged. Mulder took it as an agreement.

"Why did you sleep with me?"

"I think it takes two."

"You started-"

"-and you were just lying there and thinking of the FBI! Oh, come on. Even you don't believe that." Krycek smothered the yell into a growl. "You took quite an active role."

"This talk is not getting anywhere-"

"Should it?"

Mulder took couple of breaths to calm down. "Am I the father?"

Krycek held his eyes and lied without a blink: "No. Have we finished now?" When Mulder didn't answer, she started to get up.

And it came again as it had been happening from the moment she stopped blurring her mind with alcohol.

Danger. Near. Danger.

She grabbed hold of the chair's back and looked around. No one seemed suspicious.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing..." but she sounded breathless.

Danger. Get moving. Now!!

She started to move towards the door, but Scully, who stormed out of the restroom, blocked her way. Her gun was drawn and her eyes seemed as similarly haunted as Krycek's.

"What's going on?" demanded Mulder.

Scully shrugged as if trying to clear her head. "Something ... like an alarm in my head..." She dropped her aim and clicked the safety on.

"You heard it?" For a moment Krycek had stopped panicking, because Scully's reaction was so bizarre.

"Yes." She turned to face her. "What is this?"

"I don't know-"

Danger. GO NOW.

This time Scully snapped out of it quicker. "We better follow the orders."

"What orders?" Mulder was absolutely lost and ignored, but he followed them outside.

"Are you armed?" he heard Scully asking.

"Never leave the bed without it."

He looked at them walking ahead of him and talking... Scully talking to Krycek whom she had despised... 'What the hell is going on?'

"Okay," he caught up with them. "What-"

"I have to get out of here," Krycek stated and sped up.

"Scully?"

"You'll love this... Something warned her to leave. It's like a strong feeling of..." Scully searched for a word for a second. "..fear, almost palpable urge to run."

"How do you feel it?"

"I'm not sure. But do you know how you saw your nightmares?"

"No..." Mulder kept eyes on Krycek's back, almost hoping she would bolt. It would be easier to think of her as a traitor than something else. And a traitor would try to flee... After lying.

"I think it's the same channel of communication."

'Or not', agreed Mulder, unused to hearing that Scully was accepting the unscientific approach but he had to be convinced that she was aware of what she was about to do.

"And YOU trust her?"

"This time I do. Her fear is valid. I felt it, too. She's in danger."

Krycek lived in a flat on the second floor, which had a separate entrance. The house seemed a bit run-down, but probably it suited a person who didn't want to attract attention. 'As if she could go unnoticed right now', Mulder thought giving the building a once over.

"I'll go with you."

Mulder turned, forgetting everything - had Scully just implied that she would back up Krycek? 'This is unheard of...'

"You wait here, don't let anyone pass..." and Scully was climbing the stairs after Krycek, her coat's hems flapping. Mulder sighed - now she was ditching him... 'Not that I have any right to complain...' He leaned against the closest parked car and waited.

"Is Miss Feldson up there?"

Mulder turned his head. The low voice belonged to a middle-aged woman about Mulder's height, who wore dark green parka and well-used denim jeans. "And you are..?"

"Her landlady, she asked to be informed when her car was fixed. Is she home?"

"She is..??"

"The now very round woman." To Mulder's silence she added: "Oh, I thought you didn't look familiar, well, she's pregnant, ready to pop, but for some reason she wants to travel... Anyway, is she in?"

"Let's go and see." A woman that appeared just moments after Krycek and Scully both had a warning premonition didn't feel right. The woman started to climb up, Mulder close behind.

On the landing she rapped against the door. "Miss Feldson?"

The door opened a fraction and Krycek peeked out. "Yes, Betsy?"

"Your car is ready, honey."

Mulder, who stood behind the landlady, felt a click in his head. 'It's Saturday... no garage works in a little place like this on Saturday... unless Krycek paid, of course... But it still feels wrong.'

"So soon, good-" There was no time to finish the sentence, because the woman suddenly kicked the door open, so Krycek almost fell, staggering backwards from the impact.

Mulder tried to pull out his gun but he was snatched from the back of his neck and hauled inside the apartment with such a speed that he landed in the middle of the corridor, losing his gun and severely hitting his elbows. He heard the door slam shut behind him and muffled pops, and rolling over, he saw Krycek shooting at the lady- who wasn't a lady anymore, she shifted under their eyes into a too-well-known bounty hunter. 'That explains the UFO sightings...' Mulder scrambled after his gun, being too aware that it would be of almost no use against their enemy. Krycek was still emptying her clip into the being, but the bounty hunter was stepping closer to her, only slightly annoyed by the bullets that were hitting him in the midchest. And Krycek looked really scared, as much as Mulder was able to see.

At that moment a door opened and his brave Scully screamed the usual: "Stop, FBI!"

'No use, Scully, we don't have the means to kill him...' Mulder finally got his gun and aimed it at the shape-shifter who had cornered Krycek.

Scully's voice distracted the extra-terrestrial murderer for a moment, he shot a glance at them- and then shuddered. Somehow Scully's appearance had been enough of a distraction for Krycek. She withdrew the icepick from its neck 'Where did she have that?' and let the body drop. Her gun was still frozen in aim at the killer. Mulder got up, and crouched by the body.

There were at least five chest wounds each one leaking the green fluid these things had for blood. 'We should be dying... Why are we not?'

He heard Scully stepping closer. "You're Okay?"

"Yes..." Mulder nodded and put his useless gun away. "You?"

"Fine. Are you alright?" Scully asked, looking at Krycek. Mulder raised his eyes. 'Did I hear that? I did, didn't I?'

Krycek nodded, although her breathing was heavier than before. She also leaned against the wall.

However, her gun didn't waver.

"Is he dead?" she rasped.

"Yeah", Mulder got up, where he had been checking for life signs. Luckily, there was none. He looked at his partner.

Scully was still eyeing Krycek. "Are you sure?"

"It's ... nothing, it will pass." She dropped her aim and slumped heavily against the wall.

"What will pass?" Mulder noticed the somewhat surprising worry in Scully's face. He turned to face Krycek. The - what exactly? Man? Woman? Hopefully human... - seemed a bit pale and in pain.

"These..." Krycek made a nervous waving gesture with her hand, "-pains. They come and go..." She started to unscrew the silencer.

"How often?" Scully's voice was precise enough to cut glass.

"Oh, about every ten minutes or so." Krycek raised her head "So what?" The silencer found its place in the pocket and the gun in the holster.

"And how long have you been feeling them?" There was suddenly no pleasure seeing Krycek's eyes grow wide. With recognition. She swallowed hard.

"What's going on?" Mulder wanted to intervene, but Scully put up her hand to quiet him and stepped over the body, moving closer to Krycek.

"How long?" she demanded.

"Most of the day..." her voice faded into a whisper. Mulder could have sworn that he heard fear there. She continued: "You're not suggesting that..." Krycek couldn't finish, only swallowed again, staring at the shorter woman.

"It's very likely." Scully didn't give any ground and didn't stop staring back, until Krycek averted her eyes.

"It can't be. It's not... it's not time." She was afraid, alright.

"Sure. Not until the interval between the contractions is about three minutes."

The word 'contractions' made Mulder gape.

"Scully, you're not saying that she's going to have the child now? Are you?" He sounded a little panicky.

After a short pause, Scully answered. With constructive orders.

"You better sit down." That was said to Krycek, who clutched the wall. "And you better help ... her-" Scully still stumbled over the unusual pronoun. "- to do that." When Mulder didn't budge at once, she added, louder. "Now!"

That made him move. He got to his feet moving and walked up to Krycek. She, too shocked from the abrupt revelation, didn't even fight him when Mulder slipped his arm around her waist.

It was weird to touch her... Really weird. Mulder focused again on the task at hand.

"Let's go."

All three of them walked back to the bedroom, Scully leading the way and even opening the door.

When Krycek was dropped onto the armchair, Mulder and Scully occupied the only seats facing her, that is, they sat on the bed.

After a moment full of awkward silence, Krycek opened her mouth to talk.

"So, you think that I'm..." she found that she couldn't bring herself to say IT out loud.

"In labour." finished Scully for her. "Yes, I think you are." She tried hard to sound confident. "Couldn't you guess yourself?"

Krycek shrugged. "No.... And it's not the right time." she didn't sound very convinced, however.

"How do you know?" Mulder had finally been able to say something.

"I did my homework." Krycek glanced at him, eyes angry. "When I ... couldn't get rid of it, I ... got some books and did the math."

Scully took over again. "And the counted time would have been?"

"The 4th of February." Krycek sighed and undid her uppermost shirt button. She felt hot and was sure that she looked flushed. 'Damn hot spells.'

"You did notice in those books that the labour can start two weeks earlier and it's completely normal?"

Krycek narrowed her eyes: Scully the laser was doing a great job pissing her off. Nothing like during the merciful-doctor's-act.

"Nothing of this is normal to me, damnit! I didn't ask for this!" Mulder raised his eyebrows, but she didn't let that distract her: "I didn't want this!"

"But you're stuck with it now." Scully sighed inwardly: once again she had to clean up Mulder's mess. At least this time he was there to help, to actually do some things.

Mulder observed how Scully surveyed the room. He could almost hear those medical files opening and booting up in her brain.

"This place is relatively safe... And I am almost sure that you don't want to go to the town's hospital?" Scully was taking her scarf off.

The glare answered better than any words.

"Right." she stuffed the scarf into her coat pocket. "I'll make some arrangements then." She rose to her feet. "Why don't you two get ready for a long evening?" Unbuttoning her coat, she strolled out from the room.

The ex-partners listened her going through things, first in the bathroom and then in the kitchen. They didn't look at each other, as they heard Scully filling something with water, switching on the cooker.

Then a shout: "Is this half-empty bottle of vodka yours, Krycek?"

"Yes," came an angry snap.

There was some mumbling which Mulder interpreted as 'Not really a healthy diet'. Krycek seemed to come to the same conclusion, because she visibly ruffled up.

Then Scully's steps got louder and she returned to the room. "You should get to the bed, Krycek."

"I should get to the bathroom first," she retorted and got up, the armchair creaked, when she leaned on it for support. "And I can go there fine by myself, thank you." Krycek prevented Scully from sending Mulder after her. Since she needed some help, she accepted it, but she didn't need unnecessary humiliation.

"Okay, do as you please. But if you need anything..."

"Sure, sure..." and she walked out, feeling their eyes on her back. 'I must look like something from a cartoon.... Ridiculous, pathetic and big.'

"So we're helping her?" Mulder stated the obvious.

"Yes." Scully busied herself with the bed. "And don't ask why. She's afraid, we both heard that, she's not prepared for this and we're here."

"You're amazing, you know that?"

"I'll take that as a compliment, Mulder. Now help me."

He did. Then he asked another question that had bothered him from the moment he saw the green blood. "Why are we still alive?"

"What?" she looked up, shaking a pillow.

"The toxic blood... We should have choked to death almost instantly."

"Perhaps the virus and the vaccine together gave us immunity." She sighed. "It's the best idea that comes to my mind right now."

"But Krycek?"

"You told me that he had a similar encounter... that time when we got shoed out from the North-Dakota silos."

"So we can go around and off the shapeshifters-"

"Sometimes you're such a teenager..."

"I think that Scully might be right."

Krycek's tensed voice made Mulder, who had been sitting in the armchair, turn his head. She was back from her very long trip to the bathroom and held on to the doorframe, looking in pain again. Her knuckles were white from the gripping.

This time Mulder moved without an order. He was up to support her quickly enough to make a sprinter proud.

"Why do you think that?" he asked, while manoeuvering Krycek to the bed. 'Why does this situation feel oddly reversed?'

"The water broke... and the pain just got worse." her voice was cracking, since the garrote on her muscles hadn't eased yet. When it finally did, she felt limp. 'I hope it doesn't get much stronger....'

"I'll get Scully."

She nodded her approval and closed her eyes. She had wished to see Mulder again, but not like this. 'I'd better watch what I wish for...'

"Her water broke."

Scully looked up. "Where?"

"In the bathroom, I suppose. There were no extra-puddles on the corridor when I came here."

"Extra-puddles?"

"The body has started to disintegrate... Lots of nice goo to step into."

Scully gave him a warning look and changed the subject back.

"Is she-"

"She's fine, just had another contraction."

"I'll go and see her." When Mulder wanted to follow her, she stopped him. "Stay here, I need to prepare her and I'm fairly sure that she doesn't want you around at that particular time."

"Will you be alright?"

"I'm a trained Special Agent and a doctor." She flashed a brief smile and was gone.

Krycek opened her eyes, when Scully walked in. She looked frightened for moment, and then the usual expression took its place.

"What do you want?"

"To prepare you and to talk to you." Scully sat by her side. Krycek turned away and stared the wall.

Scully sighed. "I'm not here to hurt you."

A pause. Scully watched Krycek's left hand wrinkling the sheet. She was almost sure that Alex herself was not aware of that movement. Then the fingers relaxed and she heard her answering:

"I know."

"So let me help."

"Like you had a hell'va lot of experience!!"

"More than you."

Krycek drew a long angry breath but said nothing.

"You need to get out these clothes. And I have to check-"

"You are not doing that!!"

"Okay." 'Better to give some ground...' "Then just change into something you are not very keen on keeping. Some T-shirt or something."

After a moment Krycek nodded and started to get up. In the middle of that she shuddered and clenched her teeth.

"Pain?" Scully actually didn't need to ask. She watched her struggle, then reached and rubbed the points on her back she knew would help. After a couple of seconds Krycek could breathe again.

"What did you do?" she panted.

"A trick I learned in the pre-natal course. Worked for me." She smiled a little. "The interval has shortened, right?"

"Yeah."

"Must be the shock. It accelerated the process. I'll get the thing you wanted, where is it?"

"In the closet in the bag." Seeing Scully eyeing her, surprised, she snapped." I felt that I had to move again."

"In your condition?"

"I thought I had at least one more week!"

Scully nodded, and went to fetch whatever Krycek wanted but somehow she didn't need to ask - when she opened the carryall, she knew exactly what to search for. It was weird but right now she didn't have the time to ponder about it. 'No more bizarre than the warning we both felt...'

"Put it on." She threw the shirt on the bed and saw that Krycek was astonished. "A lucky guess." Then she tactfully exited the room, closing the door after her.

And bounced into Mulder.

"What are you doing here?"

"Nothing."

"Like hell you are. She is not going anywhere and I'm not in danger." Scully raged but felt the feeling melt away when Mulder embraced her.

"I was just afraid that she still might do something to you. You know what she was!" His voice was honest and truly concerned.

"She's in labour... I don't think that killing us could be her top priority right now. Especially when we just helped to save her life." She allowed herself to indulge in the luxury of his arms some seconds more, but then released herself. "I have to go back. Alone." Mulder looked sad, but let her go. "Maybe you should check the house."

Mulder smiled, he understood that she was trying to make him feel useful. And he liked that about her. "Okay, ma'am, I'll check the perimeter!!"

Krycek lay on her side and was staring into space.

"How are you feeling?"

She shrugged, eyes indifferent. "Tired," she finally reacted. 'Well, she does look tired', Scully thought when she closed the door.

She sat on the bed again.

"You didn't imagine us being here when..."

"I didn't."

"What were you planning to do?"

"To go to the nearest emergency room." She finally looked at Scully.

"Could have worked..." Scully approved. "But what then?"

"I would have found a way." Krycek shifted a bit. "Why are you helping me?"

"You're obviously not prepared for this. You could use some help."

"You've changed your speciality?"

"No, but I have delivered two babies. One as a doctor and the other as a..." Scully stopped, feeling that her voice would give her loss away completely. "Anyway..."

"Yeah... You have more experience. How long does it take then?"

"Couple of hours more, considering the period you have already had the contractions."

"And it gets worse?"

"Stronger."

"Just what I need." Krycek sighed and turned her eyes away again.

"It can be helped. With correct breathing..." - Krycek snorted - "...and with the back rubbing."

"The same you did?"

"Yes."

"That seemed to work, at least." Alex was looking at her again. Scully watched her face and wondered for a moment what would have happened if instead of her, Krycek had been Mulder's first partner. When the change of gender would have happened while Mulder and Krycek had been trusting friends? Krycek would have probably still loved him... And they might have become lovers... even before the sex change. 'And most definitely after it. Mulder couldn't have resisted a living and adoring X-file who would be in his reach and begging for his help... and support. Yes, they would have been... lovers.' Scully hoped that the jealousy she felt flashing through her didn't register on her face in any way. 'At least... she has pretty looks.' Dana found herself comparing Krycek with Diana Fowley - and Krycek won. 'Scully, what are you thinking'

"Oh shit..." Krycek's voice brought her out from the weird reveries. Scully focused and saw her clutching the pillow. It was another contraction.

She reached across her - big she really was - to give Krycek a second back rub. While she was smoothing the tensed muscles she tried to explain what she was doing.

"These points are supposed to be linked to the nerves that have endings in the internal organs, the uterus included-"

"You... believe that?" Krycek whispered in a strangled voice.

"It is scientifically plausible, though more commonly used in Oriental tradition..." Scully felt Krycek getting more comfortable under her hands. "But even relieving the muscle tension helps you to feel better."

Krycek sighed and relaxed. "This is hell."

"But it ends." Scully unbuttoned her suit jacket, she felt hot - it had been a hard work. "May I ask a question?"

"You would probably ask it any way." Krycek got rewarded with one of the 'oh-you-know-me-so-well' looks. She smirked in return, still a bit out of breath.

"How did you change? If you did."

"IF?" Krycek almost laughed. "I'm in labour, for God's sake, and you're suspicious over whether I changed?? Or have you suspected me being a woman all the time? Even the first time we saw each other."

"No, you're were an annoying young man to my eyes then but I'd never seen you naked."

"Yeah... But I was a man..."

"Then how did you change?" Scully made herself more comfortable.

"I fell asleep... like hibernating or something." Krycek brushed a hand through her hair. Scully noticed that she did that again with her left hand. "You see, the week before -"

"When did it occur?"

"Last spring. I slept from the end of February to the first days of March. It took about a week."

"In a way it would make sense... something similar to the transformation butterflies go through."

"Me, a butterfly? I think that in my case a common house fly would be more accurate."

"You're not so hairy-" Scully abruptly stopped, finding that she was answering to Krycek as she would have done with Mulder. Somehow it was damn easy to play the game 'following-the-tangents' with Alex, too. 'And from what point did I start referring to her as "Alex"? Mmm, although it is a genderless name.' "What were you saying about the week before you transformed?" she regained her scientific posture.

"I was hungry all the time... and I wolfed like crazy. And I was also exceedingly sleepy."

"Your body was storing nutrients and getting ready for the transition. You were probably hungry when you woke up?"

"Starving."

"Were you aware of having changed?"

"No." Krycek shifted again, trying to get a better position to lay. It felt good to talk; it kept the focus off of the things that were happening around and inside of her. "I remember stumbling to the bathroom and drinking directly from the tap, I was parched, you see, and when I finally straightened up, I saw from through the window that the trees were freshly leafed and the snow gone. When I went to take a leak, I found something else gone, too."

Scully found herself feeling amused by this, perhaps it was the way she told the story.

"Krycek... Do you remember the disc you brought me?"

"Yes."

"There was a file on you."

Krycek stared at her. "On me?"

"On you. You were a test-tube baby. One of the first in the world. There were accounts of your DNA and blood work, the whole medical file."

"I was a test?"

"Seems so."

"Did it show anything to explain this?" she pointed at her protruding body.

"In a way. I showed your DNA to a specialist, who, quite frankly, hadn't seen anything quite like that before. But you are human nonetheless. He did mention the possibility that there might be something tricky about the gender of the DNA owner." Scully drew a breath and seeing Krycek's expression, added quickly: "I didn't enlighten him about who this particular person was or what is supposed to have happened to him-her, whatever."

"So I was a test... Yippee... Mulder is right. I'm a rat, a lab-rat."

'I'm a very special lab-rat' echoed words on Scully's mind. Gibson Praise had said that... It looked as if any one who came into a contact with X-files had been poked and probed somehow. Mulder had been operated on, she herself had been through thousands of medical treatments, some of which she remembered and some she didn't... Even Skinner had his encounter with the nanotechnology - which Krycek so willingly provided. "You made Skinner your personal guinea pig."

Krycek was silent for a moment. Then she simply stated: "I needed to know what was happening in the FBI. He wouldn't have given me anything freely."

"You killed him."

"I also brought him back. He had to believe that I was serious or he would've beaten the crap out of me again and called in the hyenas. The smoking kind."

Scully wanted to ask something more, but the door opened and when Mulder stepped in, he found himself facing two guns, both pointed at him

"Whoa, ladies!"

"Mulder, damnit!! Knock!" Scully put her gun back, wondering from were Krycek's had come from. She hadn't seen her reach for it.

Now the gun was beside her and she was gasping. Her labour was advancing.

"Mulder, come here. Sit on that side of the bed. Good. Now do this..." Scully took Mulder's hands and showed.

"You want me to massage her?"

"You better learn it, I might need it some day."

That shut Mulder up. 'But this is weird... even by my standards this IS weird...'

"I'll get some water to drink." Scully stood and went out leaving them in this awkward situation.

Krycek closed her eyes and lay there, doing her best not to move either away from Mulder's hands or closer to them.

"That's enough." Krycek sounded tired.

Mulder stopped his kneading and shrugged his wrists. "That's rough."

"Yeah..." She closed her eyes, feeling already exhausted.

"I think you're doing fine..."

"Oh, please! " She turned and faced Mulder looking over her shoulder. "Spare me the bed-side manners!"

"I just..." Mulder's voice was sheepish but he looked gorgeous. 'How can he look so good? How does he dare to look so good, when I'm feeling so bad?' Krycek felt anger pushing energy in her system. 'Adrenaline-junky, me?'

"That's right! Actually..." she paused and smiled not a nice smile. "- it should be you here! You put me in this... ungraceful situation! You are the guilty party in this trial. You-"

Pain whipped through her again and she tried not to moan. She felt his hands on her back doing the rubbing Scully had taught, but it was becoming useless.

"It... is just... getting worse." She hissed, when she could talk again.

"It's supposed to."

"No, it's not! I'm not supposed to be here in pain giving birth to your child!"

"My child?" Mulder came around the bed and looked straight at Alex. "Now it's my child?"

"Yes, yours! And has always been!"

"So why the lie?"

"Isn't that something I do best?" Krycek half-grinned. "But it's yours."

"How do you know?"

"Jesus... Whatever you think I am, a whore I'm not. There was no one else."

Scully, who came back with a tray, heard the last comment and halted behind the door. Eavesdropping or not, she had to hear this.

She could imagine the face going with Mulder's shocked mumbling voice. "But it happened just once..."

"I must be really lucky then." Krycek's voice was dripping with sarcasm.

Scully felt her entrance call.

"It just takes one time." Arguing parties looked up at her. She put the tray on the nightstand. There was a large jug with three glasses. "Do you want some?"

"Yeah..." Krycek nodded but shot a glance at Mulder. "But I remember three times in one night..." Her tone was half-vicious.

'So do I' thought Scully and peeked at Mulder. 'Is it his trademark, while knocking women up?' Out loud she said: "It seemed to have done the trick." The room temperature lowered considerably. She sat by Krycek, blocking Mulder out, who had to go back to his previous position behind Alex's back.

The glass in Krycek's hand shook. "Here... we go..." She thanked Scully in her mind, who grabbed the glass, before it fell to the floor. She buried her face to the pillow and smothered her wish to scream or yell or something along those lines.

When she came up for the air, Scully gave her a stern doctor's look.

"What?" she gasped, face flushed and sweaty.

"I need to check you."

"No!"

"Then we don't know when to start, and you may die."

Krycek considered arguing, but dying wasn't really high on her list of things to do. "But Mulder goes out," came the breathless capitulation.

"Done." Scully promised without hesitating.

"You're not asking me at all?" croaked Mulder.

"No. Now go!" Scully gave him a look, too. Krycek felt her hair stand on end, when she noticed Scully's eyes and the determination in them. 'Now I understand how she was able to shoot him.'

Mulder went out, rubbing his neck.

"Now, let me see..."

Krycek bore this examination, the forth of this kind in her life, like she had born all the other not lethal but unpleasant events before. She stared the ceiling, now so familiar from the nights she couldn't sleep. She had also noticed, that Scully still wore her gun. 'It's just fitting that I'd have a midwife who's armed... Damn appropriate.' Scully's hands left her and she relaxed.

"You have an hour to go, tops." She heard her saying. 'Thank God, she spared me from the details...'

"I can live with that... I think."

"I assume that you have no idea, in what position your child is?"

"No, I didn't get to do the baby-book with the pre-natal pictures."

"So we don't know how hard or easy this is going to be..."

"You mean, whether I'm living or dying?" Scully realised that she was serious. 'She's afraid... Well, there's first time for everything.' But she had to give her confidence right now; that was her role as a doctor. 'Midwife for Krycek? Scully, what's next?'

"Don't think we'll come to that. I'll call Mulder back in."

Krycek's head flopped on Mulder's shoulder. "I... can't do it."

She had been huffing and puffing for a half an hour and she was exhausted. Scully had ordered him to help Krycek, but he really didn't know what else he could do other than talk.

"Yes, you can." He was feeling bloody hot, trapped behind Krycek and steadying her when she struggled for the release of her child. Moreover, she was sweating like a pig. 'Do pigs actually sweat?' "Scully, how are we doing?"

"Well enough. Krycek!"

"No... don't make me..." Mulder heard her whisper near his ear. She sounded almost like crying.

"You have to!"

And she found the strength again. And again. And again, until...

"A boy."

"Huuh," was all that Krycek could manage. There were two things in the world she really didn't want to go through again - getting an arm lopped off for one and childbirth for the other. Now she just wanted to sleep. She felt shudders of exhaustion racking through her body, she was aware, that Mulder moved her against the pillows...

"Krycek..." It was Scully again. Her voice brought her back from the drowning fatigue. She blinked at her.

"It's not entirely over yet."

"What..."

"You still have to help me here, a little."

"God..." She was so tired. Somebody was pouring something into a glass. She felt thirsty, too. Then Mulder sat by her side her again; he was holding a glass and offering it to her. She made an effort to take it, but she saw how her hands shook. 'No use.' Then the glass moved closer to quench her thirst and she was beyond caring how she would look while letting herself be spoon-fed. 'But there is no spoon...' Mulder touched her cheek -'How am I able to recognise his touch? Even now...'- and she opened her eyes.

"Scully's ready when you are."

She somehow managed to... but that was her limit. She fell to the pillow and was gone. The last picture Krycek registered, was Scully, who took the baby up and was carrying it to the table. 'Probably for cleaning and wrapping---'

"Will she be alright?"

"Yes, I think so." Scully put the child beside her mother, the bed was big enough for them both, and the newborn would feel safer close to a familiar person. She had also done everything to make Krycek as comfortable as possible. The ex-G-man/thug/assassin snored with exhaustion and hadn't even moved when Scully had laid the child by her side. "It's just unusual that a mother falls asleep so quickly."

"How come?" Mulder sounded baffled. "It's a major effort."

"Well, the nature has made us so, that we manage to feed our offspring at once. I didn't feel like sleeping at all after William was born." Scully glanced at Krycek. "Then again, she wasn't originally a woman, perhaps the energy levels aren't the same."

"But she's OK?"

"As far as I could tell, yes." In her sleep Krycek appeared just a tired human, and not at all the usual cocky personality. Like this - Scully realised with a start - she could actually like her.

Scully stretched her back and looked at Mulder who still seemed to be consumed by the Madonnaesque tableau in front of him.

"How does it feel to be a father? Again?"

"I ... don't know. I never imagined I'd sire a child with..."

"A known criminal?"

"For one." He stepped closer and watched the child. This new son of his was done with his vocal exercises for this night and slept now. "I don't think I have so long lashes, Scully," he whispered.

"Then those must be mother's."

"Why didn't I want to hear that?"

"Guilt?"

"Yep." After another longish inspection of his son's appearance - and after finding some other unnerving resemblances to the child's mother - he followed Scully to the kitchen.

They both needed to have a moment to wind down.

25th of January, Sunday, 2004

It was a little after midnight, when Mulder returned from his second night round.

"He's still asleep." Mulder came up close to her and accepted the mug of coffee.

"The baby or Krycek?" Scully cradled her mug - of tea - in her palms and waited Mulder to correct his slip, but he had to be more tired than she thought.

"Both..." answered Mulder, rubbing his nose, "although I meant Krycek."

"She."

"Mm?"

"Krycek - she."

"Yes..." He did still think occasionally about that... that person as 'him', although he knew - intimately - that 'he' was actually she. Damnit, he had just helped bring her child into the world... "Sometimes I can't believe that she is a... she."

"Can't or won't?"

"What?"

"Never mind. Just the slogan came to my mind."

"Which one?"

"The one in our office, Mulder."

'I want to believe.' Now it sounded mocking, a cruel joke of destiny. He had wanted to believe in the unexplained. Now he had done something he couldn't explain even to himself. 'Does that qualify as unexplained?' Mulder sighed and noticed that Scully had said something.

"What?"

"It's going to be hard," mumbled Scully now louder from her mug. She looked like she, too, could use some sleep.

"Krycek having a child to care for? Sure."

"Yes... and how will the future turn out... for your children, Mulder."

"What a mess," Mulder agreed and hugged her. "You should sleep." Her hair was soft to push fingers into...

"And you?" She almost purred when he was rubbing her neck and relieving the tension there. And his smile was warm when he said:

"I'm the infamous insomniac."

Mulder had tucked Scully under a light blanket and now she slept there, curled up on a couch. He watched her, her face now so serene in her sleep and he couldn't understand why he had slept with someone else. Especially with the particular someone who now dozed in the next room... and was the mother of his child.

He shook his head. He knew that he had a unique and powerful talent to fuck up his personal life but this time he had exceeded everything he had done before.

Mulder sighed and run his fingers through his hair. He didn't know what to do. Finally he stood and tiptoed out. The door of the bedroom was ajar, and when he walked by he saw that Krycek had changed her position but was still sleeping. So was the child, the bundle in the makeshift cocoon...

"My child... God..." He headed to the kitchen, refilled his mug and sat behind the table.

'I have a son... and soon a daughter... with different women. How? How did I end up like this? I started out to look for the truth and now the truth is that I'm a father...' He sipped the lukewarm beverage, shuddered because of the disgusting taste and poured the coffee down the drain. There was no way to make more coffee without a making noise, so he sadly decided to go without. After some useless fighting with yawning, he sneaked back into the living room, seated himself in the armchair and, putting his gun into his lap, he readied himself to keep a sleepy vigil. A quarter of an hour later he was asleep, safe and sound.

Something woke Krycek. She was still extremely tired and she also felt very cold. 'Fever? Why not, I'd probably deserve to die...' She tried to pull the covers closer, but something lay heavily on it. She turned her head.

And saw the child.

Her child.

Her and Mulder's child.

The newborn had also wakened, shifting inside the blanket, but hadn't made a sound. 'Careful little bastard, aren't you?' She rolled cautiously closer, being acutely aware of her body and the ordeal it had gone through. For a moment she wasn't sure, whether she should reach out and touch him at all. In that way she would make a connection, and she feared that it was something she shouldn't do. What joy would a child have of a mother who is hunted most of her time, whose instincts are trained to keep a person alive...

But now the tiny snippet of a man made a small sound. It was so quiet, so careful, but full of fear before loneliness. More precisely - being left alone, being left behind... Something she had learned in the silo.

Something changed with that moment. Krycek knew that she wouldn't ever forget this moment or the sound or the need to touch her child.

So she reached out her hand and caressed his head with the tips of her fingers and he settled and fell back to sleep.

"He recognised you."

Mulder's voice made her jump. 'My well-tuned survival instincts are totally shot...' Krycek looked at him for a second, not particularly wanting to know, what he thought about this moment of weakness. Mulder seemed sleepy, he stifled a yawn when he walked closer and took a seat by the child. 'So this is how your father looks... but you won't see him, because you sleep.' In a way she felt bad that he probably would never see Mulder again, but then, what good had come from the fact that she had seen him... 'Perhaps it's better for you that you don't.'

"How do you feel?"

"Like being run over by a herd of overweight elephants." She refused to raise her eyes at him and watched her child instead. He was so small in that messed up swaddle, so peaceful... 'Was I ever so peaceful? Was I ever so small? So... innocent? Was there a time when I didn't know about the X-files and people being manipulated.... Was I?'

"What are you going to do?" Mulder touched the child tentatively and Krycek felt an urge to push his hand away. She contained it, answering him instead.

"I'll find another place to live."

"I meant - with the child." He stroked the top of the boy's head.

"What do you care? I somehow doubt that a child with me would look good in your CV. So, don't bother playing the father." This made Mulder to pull his hand back.

"It doesn't change the fact that I am his father."

"You think that only because I said so. Have you ever trusted my words? Why start now?"

"Are you changing the story again, Krycek?"

"Actually I'm too tired for that. I'm not up to spinning nice glittering lies." Krycek drew a long breath. "And I can't believe that I'm having this conversation with you. I can't even believe most of the last year to be true. I can't believe that I have a child." She stopped, shocked that she was ranting - and panting too. 'How perfectly pathetic... a hysterical woman in a post-natal situation. The dream of my life...'

"I suppose this is the place where I should say that I can't believe that WE have a child. Which is actually true." Mulder added and looked at the sleeping body lying between them.

It hurt to hear Mulder use the pronoun 'we' like something dirty. She resisted the anger and just shrugged: "All that I'm saying is this: I don't expect you to take care of him. I think he's more of my problem."

At that moment the boy opened his dark eyes and looked straight up, at Mulder. Mulder looked back.

There was a moment of intense silence, so intense that Krycek was almost waiting for lightning to strike.

And it did.

"I think," whispered Mulder very quietly, "that he knows, who I am."

"I don't believe you."

"He... told me."

Krycek blinked and turned to stare at him. "What?"

"He told me." Mulder hadn't yet broken his eye contact with the child. "He somehow... said it to me. I'm not kidding."

The bad thing was that Krycek believed him. It scared her.

"How can a child, a few hours old, say-"

"Don't know. It's more like a feeling. Maybe you can feel it too."

"Don't turn my child into an X-file, Mulder."

"I've seen children who are X-files. Even you're one, if the records are right."

"Does it please you to know that I'm a scientific experiment?"

"Not particularly." Mulder resisted the needling Krycek tried on him and at last shifted his gaze. The boy squirmed in the blanket, but when Krycek touched him, he relaxed again. And she understood what Mulder had said: her son 'emanated' - for the lack of a better word - something, a feeling... She felt that he loved her, unconditionally, that he really did know who sat by his side... who his father was.

"You feel it, don't you."

She could only nod. She was suddenly so very afraid. She didn't know what to do with this child, this... ESP sensitive child, she didn't exactly know how to care for a child, even if it had been a normal one... "I can't believe this..."

"You're repeating yourself... That he's an extraordinary thing?"

"Don't you ever get tired of stating the obvious, Mulder?"

"Only on Mondays." The look Mulder got promised no good. So he changed the tactics. "Do you want something, water?"

"Yeah..."

This time she managed to drink without help. The cold water, however, brought back the chill she had felt when she woke up. There was one particularly strong shiver she couldn't hide, and the situation was the more humiliating, because Mulder still hovered over the child. And, of course, when one doesn't want to get caught, one does. Mulder noticed it.

"Are you cold?"

"No, I'm happy and pink!"

"I wasn't mocking you." He stood up, in order to rummage through the closets.

"There aren't any more blankets. These two here and the one you obviously gave to Scully." Krycek scooted closer to the child, so she could half-hold him. He was warm.

Mulder stood for a moment in the middle of the room, pondering, then walked out and came back with Scully's coat. Before Krycek could say anything, it landed on her.

"She won't mind, I'm sure."

"Sure..." But it got warmer and it made her sleepy again.

Mulder sat and watched the child. The child watched him. "I have one question."

"What?"

"Why did you choose to have him?"

"I didn't. I had to." She smiled suddenly without joy. "Seems like I never have a choice..."

"Why?"

"He wouldn't allow himself to be killed. If he had died, so would have I." She closed her eyes, relishing the feeling of warmth. "And as you know, I don't want to die."

"Who does... How did you get your arm back?"

"You said that you had one question... I'm tired, Mulder." He didn't move, however. Krycek grinned, shaking her head. "Always on the search of the unexplained... Oh God… If it gets you off my bed. It just, like that, started to grow back, when I was- mm, on the fourth month. Itched before like a bloody acute rash. Will you now go?"

"Okay, sleep." Mulder was visibly dissatisfied with the explanation, but he also understood that she wouldn't tell more. At least not now.

He got up and walked out.

And Krycek felt suddenly so alone that she almost lost it. Only a tiny line of self-control, stretched to its utter limits, kept her from calling out, begging him to come back. She was afraid, so damn afraid of the future. There was no one to support her, not any more.

She fell asleep, sobbing silently.

When she woke, the room was already filled with grey light of a winter morning. She heard somebody fumbling in the kitchen. A muffled cough. It sounded like Scully.

She craned her neck and looked at the child. 'My child,' she reminded herself. It was almost impossible information to adjust herself into. 'I'm a mother...' Her son moved a little, opened his eyes and tracked her face with his eyes. Krycek wasn't sure, but she felt that so small a child shouldn't do this yet. But he did. And he wanted to be closer to her, she just knew that he did. 'Perhaps the ESP is not so bad after all.' She moved carefully closer, so that he lay in the crook of her body and she could caress his head with her left hand. 'I tend to prefer to do most things with this now. Never noticed it before...' And then he squealed, like a small but very hungry piglet.

The noise in the kitchen stopped and the steps started to come closer. Krycek sighed but braced herself for the meeting. The door cracked slowly.

"I'm awake."

Scully nodded and stepped inside. "But Mulder isn't." She eased the door shut and came by her side. "How are you two?"

"Probably alright. I'm tired, he... seems to be hungry."

Scully flashed a small smile. "So... what are you going to do about it?"

"Somehow I can't see myself breast-feeding."

"But are you able to lactate? Do you know?"

"Nope, I don't have the faintest clue." She shifted slightly. "By the way, I hope the unusual usage of your coat-"

"Don't worry. Your body needs to recuperate. Which reminds me, do you want some tea, I made s- what are you laughing at?"

Krycek drew a stuttery breath: "We somehow end up drinking tea... and you taking care of me. This seems to be growing into habit."

Scully smiled again. "Life is mysterious. So do you want some?"

"Mm, yes." The boy squealed again. "He seems to want some, too."

"I don't think it's tea he wants..." cooed Scully to the newborn, not even noticing the tone she used. Krycek watched her, astonished. This side of Scully was new to her.

"I'm not breast-feeding him," she still firmly stated.

"Mmm..." Scully thought for a moment. "Are there 24 hour stores somewhere close?"

"There's one in the gas station and another near the liqueur shop." Seeing Scully getting up, looking quite determined, Krycek was at a loss: "What are you-"

"Fetching some things for him. You didn't do that in time."

"I wouldn't have known what to get. If you go, I'll pay for it."

"Really?"

"Really. Take my wallet from the right pocket of the parka."

Scully did, she also found the plam. "You used this thing with skill..."

"I have had some experience... Only on aliens." Krycek added, noticing her inquiring expression. Scully tiptoed out, but her cautiousness was not rewarded - before she got to the door, it opened, revealing the sleepiest Mulder Krycek had ever seen.

"Hi."

"Go back to sleep. It's early," Scully scolded him with words whereas her voice caressed him. Krycek felt a painful knot on her gut that had nothing to do with her health.

"You should go to sleep, in your condition you should take care..." Krycek almost missed that, wallowing in her pain. 'What is he talking about?'

"I'm fine, really. There's tea in the kitchen." and she slipped out, only to return bringing the blanket and changing it for the coat. "Bring her a cup too, I promised her." And she was gone again. The door of the apartment clanged shut and the fresh parents were alone with their offspring.

Who started to make silent sounds of discontentment.

"What's his problem?" yawned Mulder and stretched his back.

"He's hungry."

The look in Mulder's face was priceless. Krycek was willing to bet her life on the fact that there were many 'low-cut' pictures going through Mulder's twisted mind about how exactly she should appease her son's hunger. "I'm not going to give you any voyeuristic pleasure, Mulder. And where's my tea, by the way?"

The tea came and Mulder with it - to sit by her side on the bed.

After sipping it, Krycek looked up: "Are you going to ask me another round of questions? Use the situation for your own good?"

"Do you always have to taunt me?" Mulder seemed genuinely bored.

"Oh, that sounds almost as if you like me."

"I might have. You blew your chance." Not noticing how thunderstruck Krycek appeared after those words, Mulder watched his son struggle with the blanket and demand food. "He should be fed, you know."

"I know."

Mulder's head snapped up: Krycek sounded fragile, in the brink of tears.

She was, although she turned her head away, hiding her eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"Hormones."

She was obviously lying but he didn't pursue. He did recognise a humiliating situation when it sat in front of him. "I'll go and mop the floor."

"What?"

"The alien you offed?"

"Oh."

Mulder downed the cup's content with three big gulps and left the room. As it turned out, Scully had done the mopping, but he didn't want to return to the bedroom. He sneaked by the closed door and halted, when he heard what he had expected to hear - Krycek was crying. Very silently, but the fact that he could hear it at all, was alarming. She would never make a sound that would give her feelings away, unless... 'Unless the feelings are too strong to control. What have I done by giving her more to grieve about?' He felt like banging his head against the wall. He had made even bigger mistake when sleeping with her than he had thought at first. And now he had offended her. Again.

Krycek cried so hard that the sobs almost doubled her over. It had been so raw to hear that she might have had a chance... So cruel.

Then an emotion crept into her mind. It was almost unnoticeable at first, but when she noticed its existence, it grew stronger. It was love and worry. Her son's feelings were enveloping her like a warm soft blanket. Soothing her. She turned to face her son, but she couldn't stop weeping, although she felt a little bit better. 'I know that, I know that you love me... I'm just sad.' And he understood. She felt so irrationally thankful that she broke down again.

Scully returned with two big bags. After putting them to the small table near the front door, she walked first to check Krycek and her son. She seemed to be asleep and the child was quiet, though Scully knew that he had to be hungry.

Mulder sat on the living room, on the couch and looked deeply in thought.

"Hello." He raised his eyes, but the smile he gave her didn't reach his eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"I... I suppose I lied in the car," he admitted so quietly that Scully almost didn't hear.

"Would you specify?" she went and took a seat by his side.

"When I told you that I don't feel anything for... her." He paused, watching his hands. "It's not love, of course, but... I seem to care, at least now. I didn't want to offend her."

"But you did?"

"Yes." Mulder leaned to the seat. "I made her cry."

"What?"

"With my usual verbal fencing. I didn't mean to."

"I wouldn't have liked to hear that you could do something like that purposefully. And although it will sound weird... I think it's good that you care. It is, after all, your son and she is his mother." Scully took Mulder's hand. "What I learned with Emily and William" she sighed, "the lesson I learned was this: every child is a precious gift. Any child." She squeezed his hand. "And she is probably prone to crying right now - she might never admit it but childbirth is an emotional event. It can knock one quite out of balance. Even a tough guy, mh, girl like her."

"Then why do I feel so bad?"

"Because you're human, Mulder. Now I'll go and give her a lesson in childcare. Will you be alright?"

"Yes."

"Good." She gave him a small but hearty peck on the cheek and went to take her coat off. There was a child to feed.

The second look in the bedroom revealed to Scully the true situation: Krycek just pretended to sleep in order to avoid attention. She sighed but entered anyway: the boy had to be starving.

"I brought the necessities. And I know you're not asleep."

Now it was Krycek who gave a sigh. Scully shrugged her jacket off and rummaged through the bags she had dragged in. "Here," she put the box of tissues within Krycek's reach of the bed.

"How did-"

"They can be used for lots of purposes besides blowing one's nose, however, this is the thing you need them for right now. And this too-" she gave her a small package. "Valerian capsules."

"To calm the hysterical mother?"

"To smooth the mood swings." Scully started now in earnest to unpack the bags. "Right... Babywipes, the milk formula... Yes, you seem to understand that it's for you.... The diapers, the smallest size now, but you need to switch later, you know that, don't you?"

"I do now."

"The feeding bottles-"

"Why so many?"

"To make things easier. You really don't want to wash the single bottle each time after feeding him. Especially in the night."

"Good point."

Scully smiled and lectured on, building a pile of things on the edge of the bed. Krycek looked at the mountain with horror.

"All this is necessary?"

"And I didn't even bring anything to carry the child with."

"I knew that children were expensive, but that they are so cumbersome..."

"It just takes training, that's all." Scully watched her shaking her head. "It did in my case. I didn't expect to get pregnant, too. Not ever. But now it's high time we gave him something to eat and put a diaper on him, so this bed or the car seats won't smell for months."

Krycek watched her leave with the milk powder and the feeding bottles. There was a moment of dread - what would have happened if she had had to get all these things herself? She couldn't imagine herself walking down the aisles of some market and buying them. 'But I will have to... Very soon.' Somehow she had hoped that after the birth things would get easier but the situation seemed to be the opposite. Yes, she had had nightmares of giving birth on a street or in the hands of Consortium - which usually ended up with her dying because of the blood loss or being shot. But now, when she had to buy some of these items almost on a daily basis... The chance of being exposed increased remarkably: she was doomed to be caught in those supermarket surveillance tapes. 'You still may cause me my life, you little rascal.'

"Here we go. I'll show you how to hold him," Scully was back and continued her lesson. Krycek tried to pay attention to everything, this ability had kept her alive for years, but nevertheless Scully had to help her, when it was her turn to pick the baby up and feed him. It was so strange to hold him, totally bizarre. For one, he was so small...

"I'll fix a few sandwiches, are you going to manage?"

"I... think so." Krycek didn't sound very confident, but she held the boy and the bottle steady enough, so Scully dared to leave.

'God, this is odd...' Her son - 'what a concept, indeed' - ate hungrily whatever the bottle contained and was extremely happy with the situation. Krycek couldn't say the same, but at least she was alive. And warm and relatively safe. She still felt jittery inside, probably because of the burst of tears. So she balanced the bottle as securely as possible with the one hand and reached with the other for the capsules. The herbal remedy couldn't do anything bad, it might even help her. Opening the package one-handed wasn't a delight but now her past helped her. She managed to get out two capsules and even take them with the cold tea, before Scully came back with the sandwiches. By that time the boy had finished his meal and was waving his arms. He felt satisfied, Krycek could sense that. 'At least it's relatively easy to make you happy...'

"Do you want some more tea?"

"Yep, I wouldn't like to choke on bread crumbs, after all this it would be a lousy way to die."

The early breakfast was followed by a short war council around Krycek's bed. The child slept through that, totally indifferent of the fact that the talk concerned directly his future.

Scully, very aware how much Krycek would have liked to bolt already, tried to find some solution how to keep them all together. It would be safer for the boy, for one. Secondly she was still a bit uneasy about the way Krycek had dropped off after the birth. She seemed fine now, but Scully couldn't be sure that she wouldn't have complications later.

"I'm aware that you'd like to be out of here in an hour, but you're just not up to it yet." Scully stated, when Krycek groaned after she had explained that the fresh mother should take things really easy for at least a day more.

"But there may be another of those fuckers coming, damnit! And I should just lay here?!" Krycek puffed angrily. Scully put her hand on her arm, but Krycek shrugged her off.

"I agree in this part, that this place has lost its security," said Mulder and rubbed his nose. "But I also trust Scully's medical expertise."

Krycek turned away, feeling disgusted of her own helplessness - she was dependent on them. She hated to be dependent of anything or anyone. "So what is the grand scheme?"

"We get you somewhere out of this city and then provide you-"

"Mulder, if you are trying to put me into a witness protection program... forget it. I'm not going to show myself anywhere or testify. I brought you two information in the past, but that will be all! Do you really think that I will now go around, with this child and talk about- ah, never mind..." Krycek drew a breath and closed her eyes. She still felt too rattled and weary to put up a long argument.

"Are you sure that you want to disappear again?" Scully's tone was careful, though questioning.

"It has worked for me for a long time. Why change it?"

"Because of him."

"He'll be fine!" Alex growled and realised that she had just now protected her son. 'What next, Alex? Cooing to him too?'

"If the searchers were only human, I'd believe you. But they're not." Mulder sighed. "Can you spot them? We saw that you can eliminate them but can you find them, before they get too close?"

"He senses them."

"So it was him who warned you?" Now Mulder was his usual nosy self.

"Yes, Spooky."

"Hey, calm down, two of you, please!" Scully stood up and starting pacing. "You want to leave." Krycek nodded, tired of talk. "And I think it's wise, considering the fact that the bounty hunter found you here. But you can't just get up and walk away. You aren't well yet-"

"You said that already."

"I did. What about your car, is it still being repaired?"

"What about it?"

"Tracks." Scully sat in the armchair. "You can't leave it behind. If we start moving, the car has to come with us, at least to the next point of civilization. And your son keeps us safe?"

"Yeah... But nothing happens today?"

"Well, no." decided Scully for all of them.

Krycek snarled but gave in. "Then I'll go to the bathroom, and then I want to sleep."

When Krycek was back in bed, the boy beside her and they both asleep, Scully sat down with Mulder in the living room and they made some more decisions. One was to get their things out of the motel and check themselves out. Then, of course, they needed to deal with the local police. Scully saw Mulder's expression - he hated authorities of all kind. Sometimes even the hotel clerks were an obstacle for him. So she graciously offered to do all those things herself. Which left Mulder with Krycek and the baby, an explosive combination, but there was no other way - although Krycek was able to shoot straight, it was better that she had back up.

"And I'll check about her car, too." Scully added, buttoning her coat for the second time in this morning.

"Why would they tell you? Unless you use our credentials?"

"Mulder, don't you think I can mislead them, too?" and there was a mischievous gleam in Scully's blue eyes.

"You keep me honest, but you lie?"

"Must be the influence of the people I hang around with." Even Mulder smiled to that and gave her a kiss for the road.

26th of January, Monday 2004, daybreak.

"What did Mulder mean by your 'condition'?" came a slow question from the back seat.

"Nothing." Scully tried to concentrate on driving but she knew that Krycek wouldn't be satisfied with that answer. She was right.

"Cancer?"

"No. Nothing life-threatening."

A pause and then a soft chuckle: "Mulder's really unbelievable, isn't he? He just has to go around and knock up people..." and Krycek laughed listlessly.

Scully didn't answer. It did make her angry that Mulder had this fling with Krycek and that she had to drive now to get the mother and Mulder's child to a secure place. She was also jealous. However, all she could really blame was Mulder and herself, not Krycek and definitely not her newborn son.

"You better sleep. You need the rest," was all she answered.

"Yes, ma'am!" And it grew silent in the car. In Krycek's semi-truck, to be exact. She chose to drive it, when they had started out on this morning, while it was still dark. The keys of Krycek's apartment were back in the hands of the real landlady; everything Alex now owned was in the car, between the car seats and Mulder was driving the rental in front of them. Krycek's car's radio didn't work but fortunately the heating did, so they all felt rather comfortable. Or had felt so until Krycek started to pry about her 'condition'. Scully shrugged her shoulders; the grey morning and the exhaustion of the previous night were catching up with her.

Then the boy woke and made that particular sort of hungry yelp, which seemed to have become his trademark demand for food. Krycek stirred in the back seat.

"God, he's hungry again..." she yawned.

"Their metabolism is rapid because they're growing."

"I knew that much. Where are the bottles?" Scully had had the sense to fill some of the feeding bottles before they started driving.

"In the left bag, on top." Scully glanced at the rear-view mirror and saw that Krycek had it. "Warm it up."

"How?"

"Put it against your skin under your shirt. That way we only have to stop to feed him."

"Have you always fed children in the car, Scully?"

"No, but sometimes I warmed the milk like that when it got cold while we took a walk in the park."

"Good thinking."

Ten minutes later - the boy was grizzling all the time, reminding them of what they ought to be doing instead of driving - Scully blinked the lights twice. Mulder slowed down and stopped his car, so did she.

By the time Mulder had come to them, the boy was happily sucking and the crisis was over.

"What happened?" He looked tired. They needed to find a place to crash or they would become statistics in the highway patrol mortality rate report.

Scully cracked the door - the windows didn't work too well. "Dinner-time."

Mulder shot a glance at the back seat and shook his head in disbelief. "This is a view I didn't expect to see in my entire life." His breath was visible in the air - it was still very cold.

"Welcome to the club," commented Krycek from the back seat, balancing the bottle.

"How much time do you need?" He inquired, not yet able to stop staring. For a moment Krycek stared defiantly back.

"Actually we can go on right now." Scully shifted on the seat and wriggled her fingers. Mulder's attention centered on Scully and something about him changed, brightened up somehow.

"Good." He smiled at Scully, who returned it, and he walked back to his car. Scully noticed that Krycek swallowed couple of times, but when she saw Scully looking at her, she lowered her head. 'So she... yep, she does want him. Damn, Mulder! Damn, you, too, Krycek! Damn, damn life!'

She started to follow Mulder's rear lights once again - all the while listening to his son drinking his fill behind her, in the lap of another-

"I've thought..." started Krycek to say, but had to stop because the boy kicked the bottle and there was nearly a case of spilt milk. When it had been avoided, Krycek continued: "I was saying that I've been considering why the alien came after me."

"Why then?" Scully didn't feel like listening much, but the silence and the sucking noises made her sleepy - a very dangerous frame of mind on the slippery winter road.

"Because of my child, I think. He must be naturally immune to their toxic blood and maybe even to their viral offspring. Maybe they wanted to create an even more potent viral strain to be sure they can cut out all they don't want around in their Brave New World."

'At least she seems to have a point.' Scully thought for a split second. "Hmm... May I take a sample of his blood to confirm that idea of yours? Because I've suspected something similar. The toxic blood didn't affect us. In my case and in Mulder's it must have been the exposure both to the virus and to the vaccine... But what about you?"

"I... I think that the only good thing that came out from being a mindless vessel for the E.B.E. was the immunity. I've offed enough green-blooded creatures to know what other humans feel when the goo starts to ooze out from the nasty guys. It didn't affect me at all."

"So... because the father of the child is inoculated against the virus and the mother has a kind of a natural immunity.... Sounds logical." There was a pause, when the only noises came from the boy and the wheels eating away... whatever they were eating.

"Your child might be immune too."

"She could." Scully's mind stirred, but too late to take back the revealing pronoun.

"She?" Krycek put the empty bottle away and heard the boy belch even without urging him to. 'He's too weird, really... too easy for a child.'

"I somehow know that it's a girl. Didn't you?"

"I tried to avoid thinking," lied Alex, very much aware about the journal in her carryall. "And, yes, you may take his blood sample. Perhaps there's some good in this freaking situation after all."

Scully nodded and grinned a little. Krycek noticed: "What?"

"This has certain irony, don't you think? You might be the one who gives us the gene for virus resiliency, you who were first sent to destroy all the work that has got us this far."

"True, it has irony..." Krycek shrugged and made herself as comfortable as possible when one has a child in one's lap. Then she gave a crooked smile and mumbled: "Krycek the Saint."

"What?"

"Oh, something Mulder once said."

'Said when?' This woke Scully in earnest. 'I really must talk to him and ask.' "Do you want to put him back?"

"We'd have to stop then again?"

"Yep."

"Then I'll keep him here. Besides, he's warm."


	5. Lost

Lost

28th of January, Wednesday, 2004

Personal diary entry.

We are back in DC. We have even both finished and handed in the case reports. And we are both worried as hell but we are not talking about the problem.

Mulder refuses to talk about how he just left the motel room after we had carried Krycek and her belongings - the quick and the liveless - in it. He didn't return. He didn't even come to say good bye either to her or his son. He drank in the other room, when I finally got there. He sulked the whole day, didn't tell what he had decided in the car - because he had to have decided something, that much I know this man. He climbed into the bed beside me without uttering a word and in the end I had to hold him to make him sleep. Then I had to drive us to the airport, because he had a hangover.

He is suffering.

I can only guess why. He is a man of honour, whatever they may say. He even offered to marry me the day after I announced I was pregnant. Which means that he might have done it even the first time. Right, but he is suffering. He didn't know what to do now when there are two mothers of his children. He has obviously made up his mind to stay with me, (and I might have done something really bad and illegal if he hadn't!) but he is still torn between his inbred sense of duty and his feelings.

I'm worried about him. And damn, I'm worried about Krycek, too. Never thought that this would happen. She doesn't have a clue how to deal with her new situation, she doesn't want to be helped and she is on the run from the aliens with a child who's few days old. I have a bad feeling and I'm sure Mulder has it too. God, I wish he would start talking to me again. I realized that he must have felt the same, when I didn't return his calls. Painful way to learn.

11th of February, Wednesday, 2004, the wee morning hours

My son saved me.

This time.

God, I'm still shivering. He against my chest is the only warmth I feel.

And I'm not making sense.

So let's start from the beginning. I've been trying to cope with this. Being a mother. It's a tough job, tougher than any other thing I had to do in my past. The constant feedings, the regular changes of diapers... How did the mothers of old manage when there weren't disposable diapers, for God's sake? I'd throw up each time if I had to touch the soiled things more than just once in order to dump them. And how did they manage without the formulas?

But anyway... He woke me.

He cried out so loudly that I snapped free.

From the Call.

Yes, the alien siren song. It works on me, and I don't know why. Maybe because I was a test subject, maybe they made me receptive from the day I was conceived. Maybe they implanted something on me when I carried around the oily-ghoul, I wouldn't have noticed but I hear them and it scares the hell out of me.

I was almost gone - totally under their spell, so to say. Willingly going wherever they wanted me to go. They say jump and I do, and roll over and pant happily, too. God, this is awful.

I was at the door, just like I had got up from the bed - barefooted, in shorts and T-shirt - and I was ready to walk out into the snow. No doubts, no cautiousness, nothing whatsoever. They wanted me out and I almost was there...

Without him I would have been there.

When I woke I couldn't understand what in a hell I was doing there. I blinked stupidly, standing in front of the door, staring at it. And I still felt the urge to walk out into the cold somewhere in the back of my head. He screamed louder. I picked him up to calm him and the voice died away, though not entirely: it quieted to a whisper, a constant murmur in the background, but it lost its power.

And I found that I was cold and sweaty and shivering. I got back into bed, still holding him, and so here we are, the lamp in the nightstand giving me the light to write these lines.

But what if they just don't call, but come in flesh? I can kill them one at a time, but not more. A maximum of two, maybe. What then?

If they come here and I have to fight them, then I can't hold him, which seems to be the only thing that keeps the Call at bay. They can just walk up to me and snap my neck, I wouldn't be able to resist them.

And they would get him and kill him slowly with the tests...

Not the future I would want for anyone. Well, Spender Senior might be an exception. But to no one else.

The same day.

It seems that they cease calling during the daytime. Maybe people walking like zombies attract too much attention or something... Anyway, we are driving away now. I loaded everything from wipes to diapers and we are off. Perhaps they won't find us so easily, if we keep moving.

14th of February, Saturday, 2004

The answering machine beeped, but nobody left a message. Scully drifted back to sleep, only to wake again when the cell phone started to buzz and move on the nightstand. 'Why did I forget to turn it off?' She sighed and reached for it.

"Scully..."

Instead of Mulder, she heard a deep relieved sigh and "It's Krycek. Please, don't hang up."

"Talk, but be brief, please. It's... - she glanced at the clock - ... inhumanly early."

"Can you come and fetch my son?"

"What?" She was suddenly wide-awake. She even sat up.

"I'm in DC, at the interstate bus station. Would you please come? Please."

"What's the matter? Are you hurt?"

"Not yet. But I'm running out of time."

"Ou... God, I'm not believing I'm saying this..." Scully rubbed her forehead to increase the circulation. "Give me half an hour."

"Thank you." Then Krycek hung up. Scully shook her head, still not believing what she was going to do as she crawled out of the bed.

She walked into the almost empty station building 28 minutes later.

"The ponytail suites you." Krycek low voice almost gave her a coronary.

"You didn't exactly give me time to visit my favorite hair-dresser now, did you?" she answered and took in the picture in front of her. Krycek, the boy in her arms and one bag over her shoulder, another one at her feet. She herself looking like shit - the dark circles around her bloodshed eyes.

"What happened?" Scully motioned towards the rows of chairs and they sat. Krycek dropped the bag but clung to the child like he was her lifeline.

"You were right, I can't protect him; if they should want to get him. You two have a better chance."

"So you want to give him to me, to us?"

"Yes." Krycek looked at her, and closed her eyes, yawning. "I can't protect him."

"It's not good for children to grow up without their parents..."

"You're telling that to me? To a lab-rat, who has no idea from whose genetic material I'm constructed."

"But you had people whom you considered to be your parents, people who loved you."

"So will have he. You'll be a great stepmom and you'll mould Mulder into a decent father, too."

"But why now? Or why not come to the witness..." Krycek snorted, so she sped up."...we could help you to..."

"And you will. But not that way. I-" She tensed up and hugged the child closer.

"What's the-"

"They're calling me," she gritted through her teeth. "Like they called you to the bridge. They've not come physically to get him or me yet, but they will. They call me and he is the only thing that keeps me from following."

"Then it makes no sense to give him up!"

"It makes perfect sense," Krycek's voice eased up, she sighed and Scully could see a sheen of sweat on her forehead. "He's getting tired of protecting me, and they are getting stronger. Eventually they'll win and I'll follow and I don't want him any where near me when that happens." She sighed and caressed the small head with her fingertips. Now Mulder's son had a bit more down than Scully remembered. "They'll kill him eventually, one way or another. One test subject in the family is enough."

There was a silence between them, until Scully reached out and caressed the boy, too. He seemed to accept her. "You really care about this child, don't you?" She looked up to see what Krycek would answer. The tired mother bit her lip and whispered softly, so Scully heard it with difficulty. "I... suppose so." 'And he's Mulder's', added Scully, knowing that Krycek would never admit this as a part of a reason, at least not to her. Although it might be the main one.

"So what do want to do?" she asked instead.

"I... I must be more tired than I thought...."

"Meaning?"

"I miscalculated the bus times. If I want to survive this night, I'll have to have him for, mmm, (Krycek glanced at her watch), about two and half hours."

"What? Why?"

"Don't you remember? They didn't call you during the day, did they?"

"Come to think of it... No." Scully caught the idea. "You have to have him until sunrise?"

"You are an exceptionally bright Special Agent." Krycek smiled, it was a very tired smile.

"When did you last sleep?"

"In the bus."

"Why the bus?"

"Less security cameras than in airports."

"Right..." Scully wondered for a moment whether she was losing her mind, but decided to figure that out later. "Come to my place and sleep till morning."

"Come on, you can't be serious."

"Very serious. I'm not going to sit in some 24 hour canteen with you for two hours and watch you fall off the bench. It's better to sleep on the couch in my living room, and cheaper, too." Scully was almost shocked by her own words. But they seemed to work.

"Giving me a discount for frequent use of your services?"

Scully sighed. 'Humour. Great. Humour was a bloody weak defence. At least, where Krycek was concerned but it was better than to hearing her admit once more that she loves Mulder. Anything was better than that.'

"Something like that. Come on." She watched her haul the bigger bag on her shoulder, then took the smaller one herself, before Krycek had the time to protest. "You have your hands full, already."

The boy dozed off in the car the second the machine started moving.

"Does he like driving?"

"Yes, seems so. He likes to be constantly on the move."

'Like his mother...' thought Scully, while changing lanes.

"Perhaps because I did it so much, and still do," added Krycek, startling Scully. "When I drove, he slept peacefully, when I stopped he got nervous and cried... So I drove. I couldn't keep it up indefinitely, however." Scully noticed that Krycek was slurring her words, she was talking to keep herself awake, and it wasn't easy any more. "He," Krycek continued after stifling a yawn, "wouldn't have it, of course. There was a danger and he knew we had to run. So I ended up selling the truck and taking the bus to DC. He slept there and I slept there."

They entered Scully's apartment quietly, Krycek padded to the couch, having kicked off her boots and had fallen asleep by the time Scully had locked and deadbolted the door. Alex still held the boy, who lay peacefully on her chest and snoozed, too.

Scully shook her head, listed ten reasons on the topic 'Why this is a bad idea?' then shrugged. She dropped the second bag next to the first one near the wall and walked to the bedroom. She didn't expect to fall asleep, but she did.

She woke up on hearing somebody making a loud and demanding sound. Krycek's son was by her side and a short look through the apartment confirmed that Krycek herself was gone. The door was locked, but not deadbolted anymore, the key, skilfully extracted from Scully's keyring, lay on the floor where the newspapers tended to pile - mostly during the unexpectedly prolonged X-file cases. 'Damn her...' There was also a note on the table:

Sorry to leave like this, but I have no time to waste. There are two full bottles at the top of the bag, the supply of diapers should last about a day and a half, with luck, two days; other things longer. The wad of bills is for his costly habits. You know that he likes to move, but he also likes you. He told me. Yeah, I know what you're thinking now, but ask Mulder, he'll back my story. He's an empath at the very least, if not more. And he agreed to stay with you. Take care of him and yourself and Mulder, too. Oh, yes, and name him. I didn't have time to think about it.

K.

P.S. Remember when you said that you took a chance helping me? I'm taking a chance leaving now. I hope it saves him. And if you want to know more, there is a journal. Show it to him when the time is right.

Scully had the eerie feeling that Krycek meant both important 'he-s' of her life but then the unnamed son of Mulder yelled again and she rushed to warm the milk.

When she finally called him in the early afternoon, Mulder came at once. She had read the journal, and she was shocked but she refused to show it to him.

"She asked me to wait, and I'll do that." Then they sat down, Scully holding the baby, Mulder still puzzled as hell, and Scully went over the events of the previous night.

"And she didn't say where she was going or..."

"No, she didn't. She probably doesn't even know where she will go or where she will end up. But there was one thing in this journal that means something right now." Scully flipped the notebook open, found the passage and cleared her voice: "So, here it is."

"I'm going on a 99,9% certainty, suicide-mission, which may not let me use that puny 0,1%. I know that you came back and survived. I may not. I wish I was stronger, but when there is nothing else left, I'll think of you and wish that it were enough to pull me through. You're my strength, Mulder. I hope you're not angry about that."

It's the last entry in the notebook." Scully closed it. "She really must love you."

"But it also means that she might not come back." Mulder looked at the boy and sighed. "He doesn't deserve to be motherless."

"No. Nobody does." She shifted the baby to lay on her arm; he blinked at her and started to wriggle his fingers.

"And he'll probably be the first to know when she dies." Mulder's words were heavy with concern. Scully gave her finger to the boy to play with and replied:

"If she dies. You came back. You both have come back from no-win situations. You risked a lot, so has she. She risked asking for my help; you trust me, that's a risk too. We love each other, and even that is a risk - we have a line of work that may very easily end and has ended - with one of us standing up alone by the grave of the other..."

"Don't, Scully, please..."

"But it is a possibility. We all run risks, high and low. She still might come back."

However, she could see in Mulder's eyes that he recalled the charred bodies found at Skyland Mountain and in all the other places and, to her great regret, Scully thought about the same things. All of which together meant this boy might never see his mother again.

17th of February, Tuesday, 2004

The darkness of the room vanished in the light, everything faded into brightness and fear clamped down on her throat, and she couldn't move.

She couldn't move and she was lifted, by nothing.

She tried to scream but there was no voice.

Only fear and then such a bright sharp light that...

Scully woke, almost certain that she was whimpering loudly, and Kevin, Mulder's illegitimate son, cried softly in his crib. And she understood: Krycek had been taken, she had not been able to flee. Scully got up, took the boy in her arms and tried to hush him.

The phone rang.

She walked over and picked up the receiver, the child still crying softly against her neck.

"She's gone, isn't she?" Mulder sounded sleepy.

"Yes. We probably saw the same thing. Lights-"

"- and fear. Yeah, seems so. And Kevin?"

"Sad. But she isn't dead, you know." Scully wasn't even sure to whom she addressed this comment.

"Do you want me to come over?"

"We have to go to work tomorrow."

"I'm aware of that. Do you want me to come?"

"Yes."

They ended up snuggling and sleeping in Scully's bed, Kevin with them and this felt almost safe.

Days went by, weeks followed, no information about Krycek but somehow from every other source there started to come unsettling news. There was an outbreak of some new strain of viral pneumonia here and there, nothing very big at first but the death toll was almost 100%. The Gunmen reported that most military facilities were on red alert, that the activity of UFOs was similar to bees preparing to swarm. And Scully was putting on obvious weight just as the world seemed to be ending.

12th of June, 2004

Personal diary entry

It ended on the 6th of June, 2004. The 'it' being the world as we know it. A hot day - that is the thing I remember now, when the radio suddenly turned quiet, quiet except for the white noise, and then the power went out. I sat in the kitchen of the secluded country house Mulder had purchased in the middle of April and wondered what had happened. And then I heard Mulder calling outside.

I walked out, not without some difficulty and I saw what he saw.

The sky was full of saucers. There were dark shape-changing, humming clouds around them. The bees had escaped and were now the world's deadliest swarms ever.

I didn't understand that I was shivering until Mulder came and hugged me from behind, protecting me. He wouldn't have been able to shield me from this danger but I appreciated the gesture nevertheless. We stood there and watched our world become cast over.

We went back inside as there was nothing we could do at the moment. We soon found that all communications were gone: no phones, no radio, no TV. At least we wouldn't feel cold, yet.

Mulder kept hugging me, he was trembling, I felt it clearly. So I asked: "What is it?"

"I remember now, what happened to me during the abduction... It's not pretty."

"I know. I remember now, too." And by the name of Lord, I did. I couldn't move, only cling to him as the blanks in our memories filled with horrid images.

Later we learned that this happened to anyone who had been taken. There were hundreds, thousands of suicides during the next week. The Bee-plague, as it was referred to later, didn't lift the mood either. And those who survived both waves of destruction were few and at first too frightened even to try fighting back.

For the two first days after the colonisation began, we lived in that house, nervous and desperate, but understanding that we couldn't get back to the city, because the roads would be blocked by the escapees and their cars. What distressed us most, however, was the fact that we couldn't get any information about the people who were important for us: Skinner, my mother and brothers, the Gunmen...

"We have to go and see what's going on," Mulder said in the second evening, dead-calm and dead-scared at the same time. We were in the broad bed and we were holding onto each other - which seemed to be the only thing we were doing recently. I shifted a fraction and then nodded. "Though it would be safer for you to stay here and-"

I shook my head so violently that it hurt my neck.

"No. Mulder, I don't want to be alone in this world. If something happens to you out there, then I would sense and worry but not know for sure. And it would feel far worse than knowing, believe me."

"I believe you. But our daughter..." His fingers were in my hair and tried to persuade me to drop the issue. I ignored them the best way I could, with statements.

"Is safe as long as I'm safe. It's probably dangerous every where, even here."

"At least they can't contaminate our pipes..." It was a weak attempt of humour, but I cherished even that.

"Yes, not many, at least."

The house has an independent water supply, a generator supported pump in the spring nearby. When Mulder had started to look for a house outside the city, the Gunmen had given him advice and now this place was as self-sufficient as possible. We do have a generator to give power, yes, but right now we had decided to save it for the rainy and snowy days. Rephrasing this: we didn't want to risk running out of fuel. Although the Gunmen had been adamant about all the supplies, we had hoped that we wouldn't need to rely on this place at all but we had sneaked out of the city from time-to-time to spend some days here. This had been just one of those occasions. Just a weekend trip, only this time the world happened to end.

"We better be armed and perhaps use your car, it's smaller and more economical..." Mulder mused, his fingers still fondling my hair, but his mind already in survival mode - if there is any in his mind.

"I agree. Can you pump the gasoline from one car to the other? My tank was only half full."

"Mmm, when I find the manual pump. Frohike insisted I'd buy it, but I never fathomed that I'd really have to use it..." His voice made me smile - sadly. I rested my head on his shoulder and commented, hearing his heartbeat so close to me:

"Their paranoia now seems the only workable frame of mind."

"Unfortunately it's true." And then he tightened his embrace, as if wishing to remember this feeling forever.

The city was as bad as we had expected it to be - it felt like walking onto a movie set. The abandoned cars were every where, and it seemed that it had hailed dark and dead bees. The insects covered every possible surface.

But this was for real.

"Scully, I feel like I'd been sucked into the Twilight Zone."

"Perhaps we have."

My smaller vehicle made its way slowly way between the cars, some of which had crashed into each other, some of them just parked in the middle of the road or intersection. Death of a world and the only remains are the steel constructs that had once moved and concrete constructs that didn't. It felt, suddenly, so inadequate. And stupid.

"Where are all the people? And why are the cars empty?" Mulder stopped looking for another narrow passage to get through. I felt myself sighing and leaned back in the seat - the third trimester is the hardest and I was very long gone. Nevertheless, I had to think about the question.

"Probably the owners got out when the bees got into the cars. Wouldn't you?" It wasn't the best I could come up with but it had to do for now. He had asked me to keep an eye on the surroundings.

"Knowing what even one sting can do, there is no point."

"They didn't know that. They would've tried to run away from the swarm."

Mulder suddenly gasped: "It's the third day.... We saw the offspring gestate within one day in normal temperature. It's been two days... Do you think there are many humans around at all, Scully?"

There was this burning cold feeling in my throat and my respiratory functions almost failed. After some thirty seconds I managed to utter:

"I don't want to hazard a guess. Though majority of those who got more than one sting would most likely have died."

"So somewhere there are lots of dead humans and even more very angry aliens... Want to go promenading?"

"I think we have to. The road ahead is blocked." So we got out of the car. If anyone had seen us like we were that day, we would have been kicked out from the FBI with no further comments.

We both wore Kevlar, as much as we could - I being almost in my eighth month and he carrying Kevin in the body harness. Frohike had customised the last thing with parts of another bullet proof vest and pockets for extra clips. Always trust him to come up with the craziest ideas to keep the children safe. Anyway, besides those weird items, we had our side arms, M-16-s (another courtesy of Frohike) and four hand grenades for each of us. We had thought to wear something over our equipment, but it was still bloody hot and there was no one to judge us.

It was eerie to walk in the empty streets. To see the Cradock Marine Bank on the corner of E-street and 8th Avenue with its doors wide open and no one trying to rob the unguarded money. To stalk past the hundreds of cars, frozen in their way, to hear no noise of Civilisation whatsoever. We kept close to each other when we walked down towards our work place. We were walking in a dead world.

16th of June, 2004

Personal diary entry

We found Skinner.

He has amnesia. He had lived the passed few days in the FBI building, frightened and almost crazy with all of this. We had to force him at gun point to listen to us as he was so far gone. He didn't know who we were. Mulder had to dig out his badge and also Skinner's, afterwards he was willing to come with us.

The reason for his condition is obviously the result of severe concussion, the evidence of which is a gash on his head, at the back of his skull. He had bandaged it somehow but, as it turned out, it still needed stitches. Fortunately we could get into the labs and I got the things I needed to take care of his head wound.

He told us that all that he remembered was that there had been an alarm and then everybody had started to evacuate the building, but then the bees came in through the air vents and all hell broke loose. He had lost footage on the stairs and fallen. Then everything had blacked out. He had passed out. He had damn good luck not to be trodden on and he hadn't seen any other humans until we arrived.

We took him along with us, loaded with as many guns and rounds as we could carry - and me also with the medical supplies - and decided to visit our homes. We went to my apartment first, then Skinner's - the fact that we knew where it was and he didn't, surprised him in a bad way - and then we went to Mulder's.

I had the hospital bag ready but now I needed to add some personal belongings, because it seemed we had to leave our previous lives and ways of life far behind. Since it was already dark when we arrived at my place, we stayed the night. My last night in my old apartment. Thank God that Mulder was there to hold me when I cried myself to sleep. The only thing I hate about being pregnant is the emotional imbalance.

It was easier with Skinner's apartment, it held no distinguishable emotional values for me, and Skinner couldn't remember much. He packed everything in a cold, military fashion and was ready to leave in an hour. It took longer in Mulder's. Mostly because Mulder couldn't decide what to leave and what to bring. We spent about five hours there, waiting for him. Skinner asked whether I was married to him and I thought about saying "yes" but Kevin saved the day and yelped and I fed him. Our former superior watched us, then came the inevitable question about Kevin. Mulder, who had come into the kitchen, answered before I could even open my mouth.

"He's my son. His name is Kevin." The AD was satisfied with that answer, just like that. The concussion must have been really bad. If I had had the means, he would have gone to hospital for a CAT scan ASAP.

Finally Mulder was ready and we left, leaving Skinner's lost glasses and the Old New World far behind.


	6. Found and Settled

Found and Settled

July, 2004

Personal diary, etc.

I'm a mother again. She lies beside me and I cannot stop looking at her. She is so tiny and so beautiful. Mulder insists that I must sleep but I had to write. I'm too tired to sleep and since my hand can still hold the pen... so I'm writing. We decided to leave the task of naming her till tomorrow.

She is sleeping. She is small and warm and I love her.

I love Mulder, too. He was a great help, better than I expected him to be. Perhaps he had read about how to assist with a birth, I wouldn't put it past him. If he did, good for him and me. He knew how to massage - okay, he did practise on Krycek but it wasn't that much! - he knew when to be silent and when to urge me on. I did shout out some commands but there was actually no need for them: he knew what to do, how to support me. Yes, I'm quite sure that he had studied the subject. Well, he gets an 'A' from me.

He also said that I chose our anniversary to give birth to our girl and that seemed to him to be a well-thought scheme, as if I really had planned all of this... Well, if it really is the 23th of July, I at least know your birthday, my girl.

Talking about the boys: Skinner tended Kevin, while I was huffing and puffing like the proverbial wolf. He has grown to like the boy. I wonder would he still like him if Skinner knew and remembered who Kevin's mother is. He has started to recall some things, like what our first names are and what our suspicions were about the world. Unfortunately our suspicions were right.

And Krycek was right, too. I can hear the Call also, but when my little girl is here, it doesn't disturb me. Perhaps they, Kevin and she, my beloved nameless, are strong enough to silence Them. The children are sleeping in our bedroom any way (we decided that with Mulder), so they will be close to me at all times.

Skinner is just behind the door on the wooden couch/bench, and he is getting restless. He wants to fight the aliens or at least go and look for other survivors. There has to be some, and I do want to know what has happened to my family. Mulder is itching for information about the Gunmen, too.

Skinner wants to head out soon and we have to accept it. Mulder has promised - without me asking him to - to stay with me and the children. We do have to return to the city, though. Skinner needs wheels under him and we need fuel, food, some more clothes... I never expected to ponder about how it would be easier to steal... Life is weird.

And wonderful. My daughter is a proof of that.

August, 2004

Pain, searing pain.

'Why, why?' gasping, not enough air-

More pain, stronger still and no light.

'Why?'

"Hey! Hush! You'll wake the children!"

Mulder's voice brought Scully back to the bed. She searched for his hands and clutched them hard.

"Another bad dream?"

"It was no dream." Her voice was breathless and serious. Mulder hugged her and settled down by her, not letting go. She loved him for it.

"What then?"

"Krycek. They test her. It hurts."

"I remember it hurts but how-"

"I just know that she's in pain right now." He hugged her even closer and his breath warmed her neck. "I don't know how I know it but-"

"The term for it is called 'telepathy'" mused Mulder quietly. "We used to investigate this phenomenon... and you used to deny the existence of it..."

"Call me converted, but I know what she's feeling."

"I'm not arguing with you."

"Good." Scully forced herself to relax. Then she tensed up again and turned to face him, although in the darkness of the bedroom, she couldn't make him out too well. She could see his eyes, though. "I will know then, too, when she dies, won't I?"

Mulder didn't answer, only kissed her forehead and held her, but it was an answer, nevertheless. They would know. It was odd how this person, who was actually an intruder in their relationship, made them feel so close, so intimate together.

"I thought as a child, stupidly," he heard Scully saying, "that to be different, to predict the future or to be telepathic, was a nice thing. My education demolished this belief, making the world clear and scientific without anything 'mystic' in it, without anything that couldn't be measured within the physical world. Our work convinced me to reconsider both the existence and the blessing of these phenomena. Now I'm almost sure that this is the closest thing to a curse-"

"I think we just don't know yet, how to deal with this ability, that's all."

"It drove you crazy."

"But I'm here and sane enough, I hope."

"You're sane enough for me." Scully felt him smiling and leaned in for a kiss. She was not refused.

September, 2004

Personal diary.

Skinner left today. He felt that he had to and in a way, we needed to let him. We badly need the information he may bring back. He promised to return in the spring. Let's hope, that he will.

He has gained enough memory to be prepared for this world and to deal with the alien problems. He doesn't know about Kevin's mother and I personally think it is better for him to remain ignorant. Skinner could understand Mulder sleeping with another woman but not with Alex Krycek, even if she is female.

Skinner was also the person who suggested the category of names from where we, with Mulder made the final choice. I like the name, Sophia. Mulder laughed then and commented that a smart woman has to have a girl with a name meaning 'wisdom'. I was puzzled for a moment but then my own wisdom also returned and I recalled the Greek roots of the name. And I liked it even more.

And now he's gone. It was a sight to see - Skinner on a motorcycle but that thing is easier to maneuver than a car and far easier to hide if need be.

The day they went to get the supplies from the city drove me almost up the wall. I have become dependent on Mulder's presence; I need him to feel safe. It sounds stupid, it even feels stupid but it is true. I am perfectly able to take care of myself, I can protect my children efficiently, I can kill without a blink of an eye - I sound like Krycek already... - but I still need him.

So when they finally returned - with two truckfuls of stuff - I just sat down on the threshold and watched him. He has lost some weight doing all these physical chores around the house and he looked perfect in that moment, unloading mountain bikes, packages of diapers and fuel barrels. I love Mulder and I'm ready to stand by him, what ever the world comes to.

October, 2004

"God, Mulder, you're totally frozen!" Scully started to strip him out off the cold wet clothes. His skin felt clammy. "Why were you out so long?"

"I thought," he stuttered, teeth clattering. "I thought I saw someone..."

"Out there? In this weather? That person must be either mad or"- Scully wrapped a blanket around him- "utterly desperate." She dragged him near the stove and shoved a mug in his hand. "Drink up! We don't have many medical supplies to..." She stopped, when Mulder just nodded and started swallowing the steaming liquid. It was tea, they were both tea drinkers now; they had switched to tea when the coffee ran out. Soon the same would happen to the tea... And they would have to go and raid the city again, like scavengers... She hated that but this was the world today.

She sighed - there was no point in craving for the lost things, one just had to cope. Scully picked the clothes up and started to hang them up when that sensation came again. She grabbed the washing line and steadied herself.

A presence... pleading... cold... very cold... hungry... exhausted-

"Scully, what's the matter?" Mulder had finished his hot drink and was watching Scully, who clung to the washing line, eyes shaded.

"I'd better sit down..." Scully stumbled to the bench. "I think you're right."

"About what? What happened?"

"About someone being out there. I've been feeling these.... connections for two months." She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Mulder had come by her side, still in the blanket, and she let herself to be hugged.

"I didn't want to worry you..."

"You, silly you..." Mulder shook her gently, before pulling her close again. "What are these connections? Is it like it was with Krycek?"

"Yes, and no. Yes, because the content of the dreams was the same. At first they were dreams, well, part of my dreams. I saw myself on the alien ship, being tested, but it wasn't me... I saw it through somebody else's eyes... But I'm not sure who that person is. It could be her but I'm not sure..." Scully sighed before continuing. "Then these links appeared when I was awake, but only when I was alone, tending the children..." Mulder's arms were getting nicely warm and he was listening intensely, hardly breathing. "You presence seems to keep this away. But now it's stronger, that person is either getting closer or... more desperate."

"Does it feel threatening?" Mulder felt alarmed, but since he also struggled with his own weird abilities, he simply wanted to know.

"No... it's more likely begging... pleading, wanting help."

"Have you tried to answer?"

"Should I? With all the aliens around, some of them just might pick it up-"

"You said that it was a cry for help."

"I haven't tried to answer... The spooky stuff is usually your department."

"As if there were any departments anymore... But if you tried?"

"Mm, I don't know. I've never tried to.... actively 'listen', so to say."

"I always seemed to find you... Like in Antarctica... There were thousands of incubation cells, but... I could home in on you, Scully. And I hadn't been exposed to any artefact then... I always believed, and still do, that we share a special connection."

"Yeah, I think we do." Scully smiled when she got gently squeezed.

"So... perhaps you should try? Maybe someone really needs our help?"

"Okay." Scully relaxed, closed her eyes and tried to let her mind float.

For a couple of seconds nothing happened, but then...

That presence was there, small, miserable, shivering.... Near, actually. Very near. Just down the road to the spring, behind...

"It's right here... Mulder, you were right, there is someone out there, right now! He- I don't know- he doesn't have strength to move!" She didn't realize that she was shouting until Mulder hushed her.

"I'll go and take a look." He promised but Scully wouldn't have it.

"No! You just came back! And I know exactly where the hiding place is! I'll go!"

"You are not going alone, Scully! Do you remember"- Mulder looked at her straight in the eye. "what we promised when we came out here? Never separate, when there is danger?"

"It doesn't feel dangerous!" Scully insisted.

"Nowadays almost everything is dangerous."

Scully was already up on her feet and wrapped herself into the oversized coat they used for doing the work outside the house. Pulling the hood over her head, she said: "Whoever is out there, in that rain... if it's human, we should help."

"Okay. Wait a sec."

Then they both were fumbling through the fall storm and darkness. They had a storm lantern, but it's light extended only a couple feet ahead, so they saw where to step but no more. Scully showed the way.

Behind the group of rocks they passed each time they went fetch water, there was a bundle of -.... someone. He - or she - was curled into a fetal position, soaked through and through, trying to protect himself from the freezing down pour. He didn't move, just quivered with cold, when Mulder went carefully closer. He needed to sense who this was. Or more accurately - what it was. Now his odd abilities came in handy.

"He feels human..."

Scully stepped closer, too. She raised the lantern and the change in light made the hider raise his head. Scully gasped and almost dropped the lantern.

It was Krycek. Awfully thin, pale, shoulder-length hair dripping with water, shivering but still Krycek. There was a bruise on the left side of her face, her clothes looked as if she had worn them non-stop for half a year... which she probably had.

Mulder was as thunderstruck as Scully but he threw his gears quickly. They all had to get out of the rain and wind and back inside.

"Can you walk?" he yelled over the storm.

For a moment it seemed that she didn't hear or understand but then she tried to get up. She couldn't - she was shaking too badly. Instead of saying anything, she crouched there and made another fruitless effort. Mulder felt Scully nudge him and he went to help her. It was the second time in his life that Mulder found himself half-carrying Krycek to safety and Scully showing them the way.

Krycek stumbled heavily on the threshold, almost tripped them both over, but Mulder grabbed hold of the door handle and hauled her back to her feet. She was really much lighter than the last time he had to support her... And he was not referring to her waistline, she felt bony. She slumped onto the stool near the stove; she was still visibly shaking. The same blanket that had warmed Mulder was now wrapped around her. She looked frightened, waiting to be sent out again. Every time either Mulder or Scully made a movement, she winced.

Having made another mug of hot tea, Scully carried it to their unexpected houseguest. Krycek glanced upwards through her unusually long bangs, then diverted her eyes as if scared. She reminded Scully of a dog who after receiving a severe beating doesn't know whether it should take the offered food or just run away.

"Drink but be careful, it's hot."

Krycek blinked once then took the mug. After a tentative sip she laced her fingers around it and crouched there, breathing in the warmth, sipping once in a while. She looked miserable.

"What are we going to do now?" Mulder's voice was low; because he didn't want either Krycek or the children in the next room to hear them. Scully shrugged, watching their once-enemy sitting by the fire.

"We make an extra bed," she simply stated. They did.

Scully felt a little bit alarmed when Krycek just sat there and endured her tending to the bruise. She seemed not to be wholly there, like something from her being had been lost. 'Perhaps this is the reason I didn't recognize her at first?' But she ate everything that was given to her - after which she literally fell to the wooden couch where her bed was waiting.

Scully would have approved of some cleaning up first, but after seeing how she practically inhaled the cold leftovers of their dinner without a word; it was obvious that she was too exhausted. 'And we don't know what she had to do to get here... Don't make any conclusions yet, Scully.' So they didn't ask her anything and let her sleep.

When Mulder talked to her the next afternoon - they really let her sleep as much as she wanted - she looked puzzled, as if not understanding what was said. Mulder sighed and turned to his innate senses, he reached out his mind. Krycek was afraid and extremely tired and -

Krycek screamed, covered her ears and curled up on the couch.

Mulder snapped free. He hadn't intended to harm or hurt her. "Hush," he sat by her. "I'm not going to do that again, okay?" She just shivered, gasping. "Do you hear me? Can you understand-"

"She can." Scully, who had entered the room carrying her daughter, stopped Mulder's questions. "She just... mm... isn't able to answer you."

"What are you saying? That she's mute?" Mulder sounded incredulous.

"It seems so..." The fuzzy feeling returned and then there was a whimper: He's... so... very... loud... Scully swallowed. "Mulder, you'd better step away. She can't bear you."

"What do you mean?" but he obeyed and backed away. Krycek relaxed visibly.

"I don't know yet. Would you like to hold her?"

"Sure." She handed Sophia over, who cooed cheerfully to Mulder. He smiled at her, but then he returned his attention to... what? Mothers of his children at least.

Scully was sitting by Krycek's side. "You spoke to me just a moment ago. Can you repeat it?"

I... I... have... no... words Krycek started to shiver again.

"You're doing fine."

"What did she say?"

"Nothing too important. Patience, Mulder."

If you... ask... or... talk... slow-

"You'll, maybe be able to answer?"

Krycek nodded.

"Okay, we'll go slow." Scully patted her arm reassuringly. "Can you explain why you can't speak?"

I don't... know. Even... hard to... think.

"What do you mean by 'no words'?"

I don't... remember... many... words.... There was a pause when she blinked and shrugged, probably to clear her head. Hard now.... so tired.

"Then rest, you need it." As a response to Scully's words, there crossed a ghost of a smile over Alex's face and then she dozed off, not even changing her position.

Mulder contained his curiosity, until Scully had pulled a blanket over the sleeping figure and showed that they should go out.

"Well?" he prompted, letting the baby grab his finger and suck it.

"She can... link with me, so I can ask questions and she can answer-"

"And what did she say?"

"Not much. She claimed not to have many words to talk with. I guess that she hasn't many to think with either. What gives some validity to her claim is that she did concentrate very hard to say even these simple things. She seems to be telling the truth."

"You're saying that Alex Krycek is telling the truth..."

"Stranger things do happen."

"Alright, what else?" Mulder pulled his fingers away; his daughter had sucked them long enough.

"Almost nothing. She got very tired... Mm, yes, she mentioned that you're 'very loud'. What could that mean? And what happened to make her scream?"

Scully had not lost her way of giving him that 'raised eyebrow' look that put them back in the basement office of the FBI, making Mulder feel rather foolish and even guilty. He sighed, rubbed his nose and confessed as always:

"I... well... She didn't seem to understand a single thing I was saying so I used my... abilities."

"And?"

"I sensed her to be afraid and tired, and then she suddenly screamed."

"Perhaps you caused her pain? Maybe your so-called 'mind power' is too strong for her."

"Why? I've talked to you like that and I've not hurt you."

"When?" Scully was really surprised.

"Well... In bed, sometimes."

"I thought you whispered..."

"Sometimes I did, sometimes I simply thought at you." Mulder smiled at his daughter, because Sophia was cooing again. "But it didn't hurt you, now, did it? Why did it hurt her?"

"I don't know... But she couldn't stand your closeness back there." Scully concluded and reached for Sophia, wanting her daughter back in her lap.

The next time, Scully went to check on Krycek, later that evening, she was hot with fever. She also didn't stir much, when touched.

"It isn't the virus, or-" prompted Mulder, worried. He didn't want to know whether his children really were immune.

"No, it started with a simple cough. I think she's just over-exerted her body." Scully prepared some hot tea and made Krycek drink it. "She needs fluids." After covering her up, Scully added: "I would have preferred her to take a bath before-"

"She's always been an unpredictable person, remember?" Mulder, relieved that the bee-plague was not upon them, tried to joke but Scully gave him a warning look. "Okay, no harm meant."

"Her unpredictability also resembles someone else we both know, Mulder..."

"Point taken. Sorry."

"Bygones."

Mulder didn't know, what made him go and sit by the feverish Krycek, but there he was. She shivered and he arranged her blankets better. When his hand touched her skin, she grew tense. She didn't move and Mulder expected her to wake up, but instead he heard a weak whisper in his mind. Like she was too exhausted to actually waken, but that she still was aware who sat beside her.

You... here...

He sighed and caressed her messy hair. Remembering how he had hurt her, when he touched her mind, he was really careful, when he confirmed who he was: Yes, it's me.

Love you.

That hurt.

Mulder closed his eyes. 'She's just feverish... Yeah, sure.' He sighed and answered: I know.

He felt like kicking himself to Hell and back. He could never reciprocate: all her love was for nothing... and she was miserable anyway. She didn't need another heartache, she didn't deserve it. 'Am I really thinking that Krycek the Traitor doesn't deserve punishment?' Then he looked down on the thinned body lying beneath the blanket and understood that there was no Krycek the Traitor any more. He had probably ceased to be, when 'he' turned into a 'she'.

Mulder had to face the realization that he didn't even hate her anymore. Perhaps it was just useless, when you have slept with someone and thus proven that in some weird way you did like the person. Or perhaps it was the child of theirs, or maybe just her blind openness right now - in a situation like this she had once again confessed her feelings. 'It must have been in her mind all the time, this emotion. Strong enough to survive even the tests...' and in a way he admired her in that minute.

Krycek was ill for three days, then her fever broke and she woke again. When she had eaten her first meal after the illness, Scully proposed a bath and she didn't argue with her. She was well aware that she must stink like the worst kind of street low life. Though, she didn't expect, Scully to assist her but being as feeble and light-headed as she was, she accepted her presence and help. She heard Scully gasp when she saw her back. Krycek knew that her back hurt her but she wasn't aware of why it did.

"You have several tiny, but by the looks of it, deep cuts here. They have scarred but... Do they hurt?"

Yes. It was the first time after her fever, that she had said anything. She felt Scully tracing one of the scars and she shied away. She didn't want her to touch her more than strictly necessary. Scully understood and stopped.

Krycek tolerated her quite nicely in the bath and also when she gave her a towel to dry herself with but when Scully came closer again with the intention of brushing wet hair off her neck, Krycek winced angrily.

"Hush, I thought I saw something." Alex froze. "You have a scar here, too. Perhaps you have a chip." It was a shock and a bad one but not as bad as the one when Scully brought her son in after she had curled up on her simple bed.

"He's missed you, Alex." Scully put him in her lap and Krycek had to take hold of him. And she felt it again: his love for her, something she had not asked for but yet somehow had. He made her feel worthy of something. "His name is Kevin."

He told me.

"Did he?" Scully was surprised but in a good way. "He'll enjoy your presence."

Krycek gave her incredulous look, but Scully smiled, nicely. "I am sure, he will. He enjoys even Mulder's." That elicited a small smile out of Alex. Somehow it reflected in her son, who nudged her with his leg and demanded attention. Scully left then, saying that she had to prepare something to eat, and Krycek just held Kevin. She felt warm and sleepy from the bath, so she gave into the temptation and closed her eyes. Her son told her everything he had witnessed during the time she was gone - of course, how he had understood it. It was slightly amusing and greatly unnerving and mostly sad, but in some odd way made her feel welcomed. At least someone had bothered to record life for her. Just for her.

The next day

The scanner - one of the many things the Gunmen had equipped them with - beeped above Krycek's neck - as it was to be expected.

"You have a chip, alright." Scully commented and switched the device off.

They can find... she heard the whisper in her mind.

"Yes, they can. You know that I have one too, don't you?" Scully really wanted to know this.

I didn't. Krycek sounded shocked and sad. 'So Krycek hadn't known... That earns her some Brownie points.'

"But I suppose you suspected it to happen, when you arranged my abduction." Scully watched her just sitting there, looking at the floor. She seemed almost tearful.

Sorry... I'm so sorry.

"We can't change it, so let's drop it?"

Deal.... Pause. Can't you remove it?

"Sure, if you want to die of cancer a couple of months later."

She hunched even more, and Scully felt bad about the last sentence. It had been rather harsh.

"You're not dying now, Alex."

I hate... being hunted. The anguish could be heard in her voice, so were the unshed tears.

"Don't we all? Look, if I thought about this thing in my neck each and every day, I would be insane by now. Just... try to ignore its existence. Take this."

Krycek took the offered handkerchief and wiped her face. Has Mulder got a chip?

"No, but he doesn't need one, his-"

- brain is a beacon.

"You know that? Did you ... come here sensing him?"

Yes.

"But why did I get the images instead of him? Why didn't you contact him?"

I felt his presence but I couldn't get through. And I was afraid to... his mind power is terrifying.

"And me? How did you link with me?"

We were linked before. The children of Mulder-

"Connect their mothers? Come on, you got to be kidding!" Scully almost laughed, although there was nothing funny.

It's true. Krycek struggled hard to find proper words in her scattered mind. Those children are telepaths. You must know that. They also open similar channels... in their mothers. You can also partly hear Mulder?

"I've never tried." Scully confessed but was now convinced that Alex was telling the truth. Again. It was eerie.

If you do, go very-very slow.

"I heard, he's terrifying. I remember."

Not only that. It can hurt a lot. Scully remembered how Krycek had huddled into a shivering ball when Mulder had touched her mind and she believed her.

October, 2004

Personal diary

Krycek has been with us almost three weeks now. She is still weary from the long journey and much thinner than she used to be but she is beginning to live again. She talks to me, well, we 'communicate' telepathically. I'm scared of this a little but it seems to be the only way - she refuses to contact Mulder. I can understand her: he did hurt her the first time and by the looks of it, quite severely. I haven't tried to link with Mulder but maybe I should try it. The ability might be handy in a world where there are not many other possible methods of communication.

Kevin frightens her. She is visibly uneasy around him but she is adapting, I think. She is learning from me how to deal with children and she could become quite a good babysitter.

Yeah, what a thought, indeed!

I have learned from her, too. For example, how to chop onions without tears. I didn't know she could cook, but she does. She offered to do something four days ago and then I witnessed the most skilful use of kitchen knife that I have ever seen. As an answer to my surprised expression she smiled the first time wholeheartedly and commented: 'Didn't expect me to possess any good qualities, did you?'

She was right, of course. She will always be the first in my mind to blame for everything, from burned toast to the end of the world. The last could even be a rather valid accusation. Anyway, she is here and we are tiptoeing around discussion topics and everything else. She understands, of course, and probably wishes that she hadn't come here.

Although as much as I have gathered from her comments she didn't have much of a choice in the matter. She woke up in the outskirts of Washington DC, unfortunately for her in the same place where she had been taken from all those months ago. It was even the same room, but it was way across the whole city from where we dwell now. So basically, she had to walk here, as she was dropped there. In the rainiest October weather I have ever lived to see. Must have stolen clothes and food... Not that we are in any position to judge such a behavior.

Must have been one dreadful journey... I don't envy her, at all.

But I'm jealous. She came here because she loves Mulder. She isn't a threat to our relationship but she does put stress on it. A lot of stress, for that matter. I don't like it but it would hardly do to send her out again - into the winter, and the cold and the loneliness. It must have been hard for her to live with years of aching like that for someone. I certainly had bloody difficult periods. Perhaps the fact that she was away from him helped her some. Or, actually - what does help in the case of love? Only patience, I suppose. And in that sense we are very alike.

That's a scary thought.

November, 2004

He was kissing her neck. There was this passion in those touches that she had never felt before. He simply adored her.

And it felt so good. It had been so long since they had touched each other like that, touched each other at all... but even longer since they had made love, too long a time indeed...

His fingers were warm when they traced her jaw line, her neck, mapped her shoulders, reached behind her head, went into her hair. He pulled her head back to reveal the throat, making it vulnerable against the vicious attack of his lips-

Krycek opened her eyes wishing to see him and there was no one. She was on her solitary bed, very much alone. But her body tingled. She had felt those things. 'Stupid wet dreams...' She pulled the covers closer and closed her eyes.

And there he was: now toying with her breasts, making her bite her lip at the sensation of it-

Alex blinked and he was gone. She had not been asleep; she had only just closed her eyes. 'What's happening?'

Testing an odd theory, she shut her eyes.

He was investigating her navel with his tongue.

Very pleasant sensation, indeed. And arousing as hell.

It took a strong effort to open her eyes. She held her breath, listening to the sounds in the other room. The wooden bed creaked and the bed covers shifted. So Scully and Mulder were having a good time.

Suddenly the hurt was back, the pain of loss and doomed loneliness. When she had been weaker, she had somehow managed to quash the emotions, push them all away and just relish the feeling of being somewhere where there was warmth and food for her, where people at least tolerated her presence. But now... hearing them...

Now it hurt again. It hurt terribly.

It hurt so much that she didn't care about any morals. She wanted something to ease this pain inside and if she could get it only by stealing, then she would steal. She grabbed a pillow and pulled it onto her arms, pushed her face into it and closed her eyes tightly.

And he was kissing his way down on her stomach, making her squirm with it and wanting more and more and getting it, too.

The next morning Scully noticed that Krycek was unusually quiet. She ate, not looking at others and went outside directly after finishing her breakfast. Scully felt alarmed again. This timidity reminded her of the first days when Alex had been sick and tired and almost unable to communicate. Since they needed fire wood any way, she urged Mulder to get his butt out of the house and while bringing in the wood also take a look at what Krycek was doing. Mulder only grinned happily and obeyed, because the previous night had been marvellous.

Krycek was crouching on the shore of their spring. It was actually a brisk brook but Mulder had named it a spring and nobody argued.

"You're awfully silent today."

I'm mute, remember? Krycek's words were cocky but her tone wasn't. Mulder sensed also a great strain on her self-control.

"What's wrong?"

Everything, nothing. And then Mulder had suddenly vision of him and Scully in bed like they had been yesterday. The surprise must have shown in his face, because Krycek gasped and backed away from him, frightened

"How did you- You spied on us?"

Krycek took another step back but there was no footage. She slipped before Mulder could react.

It was relatively deep in this curve, this rivulet, and the ice was thin. She went into the water with a splash and didn't come up. Mulder stood there for a second, still frozen by the realization, then cursed and jumped in.

The coldness of the water knocked his breath out of him but he struggled against it and looked around. She floated near him, eyes closed, air bubbling out of her mouth. 'Damn you, damn!' He reached for her, grabbed hold of the back of her parka and hauled her to the surface. She was limp and she wasn't breathing and his fingers dripped red. Red like blood. 'Damnit, damnit!'

Out of the water, on the shore, head back.... All the instructions came back like somebody had read them aloud on the spot, and Mulder found himself kneeling beside Krycek and giving her mouth-to-mouth. 'I never wanted to kiss you again, and I still don't, damn you-'

She moved, coughed and started to come to. Mulder took a steadying breath himself and looked down on her. Krycek's eyes met his, but she was too busy with trying simultaneously to breathe in and cough the water out. When she finally had managed to establish a rhythm, he stood and offered his hand:

"Your head has a nasty wound. An ice cut by the looks of it. Scully will-"

"Not her again... " mumbled Krycek but tried to sit up.

Mulder froze the second time. "What did you say?"

Krycek looked at him, puzzled, but took his hand, heaved herself up and stood, still a bit wobbly.

"You talked a moment ago, Krycek!"

I did not!

"Yes, you did!" Mulder forgot even the fact that they were standing there, soaked to the bone. "Try it again!"

Krycek opened her mouth, but closed it again and shrugged.

"Come on, try!"

"What should-" and Alex stopped, stunned by her own voice. They stared at each other; Mulder eager to know what restored her ability, and Krycek shocked, finding that she could talk, and furthermore, think properly again. Then Mulder shuddered with cold.

"Inside!" he ordered and they jogged towards the house.

Scully stopped feeding Kevin when she saw two drenched figures coming in.

"What happened?"

"You tell her" commented Mulder and started to pull off his shirt, he had already shed the dripping parka.

"Mmm, we fell into the brook."

Scully gaped.

"You can talk."

"Sounds like it, doesn't it?" Krycek seemed positively astonished, when she, too, tried quickly to get rid off the wet cold clothes. When she struggled with a grey sweater, she suddenly began to stumble and almost fell, only the wall stopped her.

"She has a wound on her head. The thin ice." Mulder nodded and grabbed Kevin to free Scully for doctoring. Dana pushed him to the other room to finish his robing and went to Alex who had sat down.

"Still dizzy?" she asked, bending her head gently so she could see the back.

"Yes... and a bit nauseous. Signs of concussion." Scully was careful, but it still hurt when she parted her hair and touched the cut.

"Not too bad... Doesn't need stitches but it has to be cleaned." Out came the verdict.

"Just do it."

"Meanwhile, get out of those clothes."

Krycek obeyed and wrapped herself in the blankets from her bed. She was still sitting there when Scully came back with few cotton sticks and a bottle of something consisting of alcohol, because it stung like hell.

Mulder walked back in, clad in dry clothes but Kevin still in his arms and watched the scene. "How is it?"

"Bearable." Scully pulled away and Alex sighed with relief - what do you do, when you simply just do not like pain?

"How can you talk again?" Mulder, the Investigator of the Unexplained had returned from somewhere. Well, at least his suspicious voice was so familiar to Alex that she felt almost like at home. Mulder always sounded like that when Krycek couldn't - or sometimes wouldn't - give a neat and straight answer but right now she even didn't know the answer, and that was what she said.

"I do not know." Krycek shrugged and winced - the movement made her head hurt. "Maybe the blow did it." She didn't sound very convinced, however and-

Mulder wasn't buying it.

"That could be the case if the loss of speech came about due to an accident, or something like that." He shifted the boy in his arms - the rascal was getting rather heavy to carry around. "However, your case isn't the same."

"I really don't know any other reason." Krycek, sounding a wee bit frustrated, felt the warmth slowly encroaching to her limbs. The tea Scully brought for them both helped, too. "And Mulder, about the other thing.... I'm sorry."

Scully looked up, questioning expression on her face and-

saw Krycek blush.

"I heard you two yesterday..." she confessed and hid in her wet hair.

"She was lying." They were in their non-marital bed again and Mulder's voice was lower than usual, so Scully had to lean very close to him.

"What makes you say that?" she hissed into his ear, making him grin goofily and grab hold around her.

"She didn't ONLY hear us. Before she stepped through the ice, I saw in my mind an image of us in bed. Like we really were."

"She watched us?"

"It felt so..."

"That's somewhat unnerving."

"Yep." Mulder let his fingers roam on Scully's neck and she seemed to appreciate it. "Can you sense whether she's doing it again?"

Scully pushed herself up to stare at his face.

"You got to be kidding, Mulder."

"I'm not. Please say if she is 'watching' again. I might have had a video collection that wasn't mine, but I don't like to perform to anyone."

Even in this dim-lit room he could see Scully rolling her eyes, but she nevertheless did his bidding, concentrated and went very still. Then she relaxed and rested on his shoulder:

"No, she is very much asleep. Satisfied?"

"Well, not yet. But the things are looking up now in the light of new information."

Krycek kept indoors the next day because she wasn't feeling particularly well. Her head still hurt from the impact with the solidified surface of the water, and it wouldn't have been very wise walking around in the cold when you have just taken an unexpected dip in an icy river. She was really feeling her throat getting sore and she was also sneezing. Alex also remembered Scully mentioning that they were low on medical supplies and she felt guilty enough to try and avoid the need to use the meagre resources on her.

So she tried to be useful inside the house and ended up washing baby clothes.

As stupid and ironic as the task was, it was at least mechanical and gave her time to ponder her 'miraculous healing'. She concluded two things: that her head worked normally now, at least inside the skull; and that this 'upgrade' from her previous state of awareness had happened because of a - kiss.

Well, in her case it had been a physical contact of a similar sort, but anyway.

The first fact was just simply good. It was a relief not to have to force the thoughts, or to look for words. 'Send your message unfiltered' returned a picture from memory. Alex grinned, yes, that was it; her brain had lost a filter that had inhibited her thought processes.

Rubbing at one particularly resistant spot on something green that belong to Sophia, Scully's daughter, she dug deeper into her memory. It seemed that the abductors had given her a slight chance. Why they had done it, she couldn't and didn't even try to fathom, but it sounded like something out of a fairy-tale: a kiss by a beloved. 'Great, that a resuscitation method qualified as one... Otherwise I would have been disabled forever.' Without this background knowledge she wouldn't have been able even to look for help and even if she had known what to do, how would she have achieved it? Kissed Mulder in broad day light in front of Scully? 'And I thought I had faced all types of suicide missions...' Krycek realised that she had been washing some ridiculous items and laughing silently for a while now. 'Definitely a basket case. Good that there are no hospitals left to lock me into.'

December, 2004

I asked for my journal back.

Scully swore that Mulder hadn't seen it but it looks thoroughly read, so I will have my serious doubts. Mulder just might have read it behind her back, I wouldn't put it passed him. Not at all. Well, if he did, then he has had sense enough not mention it to me. It doesn't matter anymore, though, for he will never see this notebook again. I'll make sure of that.

Never thought that I would be returning to this notebook but I have to do something when Mulder escapes into the bedroom to read something and Scully busies herself with the children. Hers and mine. You and this girl who is mentally your twin. This sounds weird and is weird, trust me.

Actually everything about this situation is weird. I am actually living with Mulder and Scully. It doesn't feel right. I see them tensing when I am around and so I want to avoid them. I would leave but I know my limits well enough not to risk it yet. And it is still midwinter and cold outside.

It is cold inside, too; inside of me. I have always had to steal things I wanted or needed and it seems that I can't stop it even now. Even if it involves the one whom I don't want to hurt at all.

I steal the closeness, the warmth, the intimacy that Mulder and Scully share. I am not proud of it but...

Odd and inhuman as it may sound, but my missions kept me sane, intact. Now I live here, see him from day to day and I miss him so much... Like you could see, smell and sense the thing you've wanted all your life but you can't have it. Whatever the reason for that.

The single night together, our night together, happened for all the wrong reasons.

Firstly a heavy drunkenness. Secondly, it was my stupid wish to show that I won't back down from his coaxing. It was a stupid show of bravery, no, foolhardiness and we both tried to ignore the fact that every action has results. Every damn decision brings forth new aspects. And now we are paying for our actions, the main result of them soon to be running around between us. Oh, how he must hate this and curse our, and especially his, foolishness and weakness. How he must hate me for being there to be baited on, and wish me dead for reminding him every single day of his reckless doings.

Yes, I miss him, more and more each day. And therefore I steal.

I'm just human and to overhear how they love each other is too much even for me. So - I steal. You know how I do that and now that my mind works properly, I can even be careful enough not to let my presence be known. It fills the moments, but... sometimes I feel even more alone afterwards. (And I'm dead when your father sees this...)

But I made the right decision when I left you with them. I could never care for you like Scully does. Must have trained her nursing skills to peak perfection on Mulder. He gave her plenty of times to practise, indeed.

God, I'm envious. The godawful emotion I have described ad nauseam on the previous pages, sears through me on a daily, no, correction, on an hourly basis. It feels like somebody turning a knife inside you. And I do know what I'm talking about. I would gladly drink to death or do drugs if I had any, just to flee from this feeling.

Now I suffer. Perhaps I deserve that. Maybe I could have done something, found something out sooner to prevent all this.

About half an hour later. The strangest thing just happened. Scully walked in and I shut the journal. She brought me some hot tea, and she told about Skinner. How they had found him, yadda, yadda. Anyway, she told me, that he doesn't know that I am your mother. I suspected I would be Mulder's dirty secret, but in this case I agree with that status. Skinner would go ballistic if he knew. She also told me that Skinner would be back in spring. If he comes back. If he does, and if he doesn't kill me on the spot, then Scully's suggestion is good - I could go with him to search for more information. I used to be quite good at that... There is, of course, this problem of trust, but I managed to convince even Mulder to trust me.

I can see that this is just a plan to get rid of me, but at least they are not throwing me out. And she did come in exactly at the moment when I needed some distraction from my gloomy thoughts. Not that the idea of working with Skinner isn't bad enough to qualify as gloomy.

Nevertheless, Scully seemed to sense my mood; I definitely sense hers. She is relieved right now, a bit happy that the discussion with me went so well, and pretty busy with peeling potatoes. Not a thing one would have expected Dana Scully doing.

So I'll have time till the spring. This somehow lifts some of the guilt from what I've been doing these nights. To know that you can't keep doing something morally rather disgusting indefinitely gives me a weak defense. (It wouldn't hold up in any court, not even in my conscience, if I ever manage to revive mine!)

Now I can call the activity 'recording nice memories'.

As if I believe the stuff I just wrote. Yeah, sure.

But I cannot stop either. He is so good in bed. Damn, how I love the things he does!

In those stolen moments I am loved, too.

And I love him, damn him for it, too. It sounds so pathetic, but it is true: I even love the scraps I get from him, the stolen crumbs of affection. Shit, I've become a bloody romantic.

And how I envy her. She has him and his love. The whole and lush luxury of being loved by him. (Well, if I am turning into a romantic fool, let's start now. And properly.) All the quiet looks, all the secret smiles, all those quick touches that make one's heart race and create the air of caring. All the kind caresses and the tone of voice that feels like silk brushing against the bare skin. All that one can have, being the recipient of his love.

All that I lack. And always will.

Damn love. Look, what it makes me write. Nonsense and stupid pink corny stuff... What is this monstrous feeling anyway? I couldn't figure it out, and truthfully, I don't care to. It has hurt me too much to waste any more time on the subject even if only for the reason of analyzing the meaning of love.

And I wish - very weakly, however - that I didn't love him.

Or at least, not so much.

December, 2004

Personal diary entry

Love.

It's the mystery of mysteries, and I, being a scientist, shouldn't be admitting there are things that go beyond what can be detected with a microscope and verified by scientific facts.

Love is one of those things. It can't be dissected and laid out on the slide. It can't even sometimes be recognized or named. But it exists.

As an entity, as a separate will, as a force, that affects us all.

Love. Lovers, mother's love, child's love, puppy love, love of God, unconditional love.

Words, which are both words, sequences of sounds and letters, but also the truest things in the world. The only reality and truth - that has not been twisted - one gets in this world.

I've read this diary, her, Krycek's diary, over and over again, trying hard to understand what makes her tick.

And I do understand her. It sometimes abhors me how well I do. She knew me well enough to leave her child with me, for me to care for... She claimed then that he is telepathic.

I believe that he is. Kevin has shown, no, felt that he cares about me. He loves her, his mother, like a child does, although she still doesn't exactly know how to relate to him. But at least she doesn't fear him like I feared Emily. Kevin also loves his father, who mopes right now next to the window. The aforesaid father loves me.... This is a love rectangle.

Love. Again the same word. Krycek loves him. Him as in Mulder.

This doesn't frighten me anymore. It used to. She loves him. I've been rolling this sentence in my mind so long that it has lost it power. But she does love him.

After all that has changed, it is a small miracle that she still does. After how he treated her, after her change, after the child, after the tests and the loss and regaining of speech. She still does. She can't hide it from me or from her child and perhaps she doesn't want to. She tries, however, to hide it from him, from Mulder.

But he knows it anyway, and suffers, because he can't return it. He suffers, because he sees her suffering. Another cliché is apt here: love hurts. In their case it does. The love of unrequited kind. So now she lives here. With her aching body - the tests left scars on her that hurt - and with her aching heart, where the other kind of sensitive scars reside. She is unhappy, but life hasn't exactly treated anyone well on this planet... She might be happier elsewhere and I'm quite sure she will leave some day (perhaps she will even consider teaming up with Skinner as I suggested?) but right now she's here, with us. Within this Mulderian Triangle. The Bermuda triangle doesn't even come close with its mysteries.

But there still is love. As once a slogan said in one particular office in the basement of the FBI building in Washington DC in the United State of America: I want to believe. I want to believe in the future, in hope, in love. In forces that can make life a little better.

Scully put the pen down, closed the notebook and rested her eyes on the sleeping figure of Mulder. He radiated safety; at least so it seemed to her. She also glanced at the children and those were out cold, too. She knew that Krycek was awake but it didn't bother her. Alex was outside of this room and she was inside and that was all that mattered. Scully smiled and climbed into bed, next to Mulder. After giving him a kiss on his stubbly cheek, she snuggled close to him and he sleepily obliged, putting his arm around her.

They didn't need to know that Alex shared this warmth with them. 'What they do not know, cannot harm them, right?' she thought for the nth time and dozed off, dreaming of belonging.


End file.
